Taking Flight
by Cat at the Dog Show
Summary: The Philips are an unexpecting family who’s lives are changed when a strange girl falls into their hands. Will they be able to help the girl, or will her frightening past catch up to her first? A Maximum Ride take off with different characters and plot.
1. Run in with a Runaway

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Maximum Ride series or it's basic plot. I only own my own characters (who pretty much make up the whole story so HA!)**

Taking Flight

Ryan liked mornings like this. Cold and misty. It reminded him of his parents. When he was little, they would take him to the park on mornings like this. But they were gone. They had died a year ago in a car crash. He remembered the call they got from the hospital. His mother had died on impact, but his dad died at the hospital. He hated that place. He hated that day. December 21st, the day he became an orphan. He wished it had never happened. Worst of all, it was coming up. In three days, it would be the anniversary of his parent's death. Everyone was in a bad mood, and Ryan had no doubt that it was related to the upcoming date.

He lived with his siblings, they were all different ages. Max was 19, almost 20, he was the oldest and in charge. Ryan was the second oldest at 17. Jimmy was 16. And his sister, Emily, was 15. They lived in a five bedroom house. He and Jimmy shared a room, and no one used their parents' room. They had a small kitchen with a table, and a den with two couches and a reclining chair, and an extra room. They weren't exactly rich. Max had a 7:00 A.M.-11:00A.M. Job at a Waffle House, and a 1:00 P.M.-6:00 P.M. job the movie theater. Jimmy was a part-time cashier at a Rite-Aid. Ryan worked as a shelf stocker at a grocery store, so all together they could pay bills and buy food, clothes, ECT, and still have some money left over, but they couldn't buy a bigger house, and they only had one car.

Ryan was pulled out of his day dreaming by Emily calling his name.

"Ryan," she said slightly annoyed.

"Huh?" Ryan snapped out of his thoughts

"Are you," she asked.

"What," he asked confused.

"Where you even listening to me?"

"No, what did you say?"

"Sam is driving Jimmy and me to school, are you gonna ride with us?"

"Oh, no I'm picking Dia up at her house."

"Aww how cute," Jimmy said as he walked into the kitchen.

"Shut up," Ryan said. Dia had been his friend since he was ten, but they were just friends.

"Hey Emily, Sam's here, ready to go," Jimmy asked Emily.

"Yeah, let me get my bag," she said, walking into the den.

After they left, Ryan sat alone. Max had disappeared to who knows where. Looking at the clock, he decided it was time to leave. He grabbed his bag and was about to walk out the door, when the phone rang.

"Hello," he said as he put it to his ear.

"Hey, it's me."

"Dia? I was just heading over to pick you up."

"Don't bother, I'm sick."

"Oh, why didn't you call earlier?"

"I was hoping it would pass."

"Oh, well I hope you feel better."

"Thanks, me too, see ya' later."

"See ya', bye."

'Well,' he though, 'Since I don't have to pick Dia up, I guess I don't need the car.' He always did like walking to school on mornings like this, so he started back out the door.

As he walked, Ryan enjoyed the scenery. Though there was not much to enjoy. His neighborhood was pretty old and beat up. But the neighbors were nice, and there wasn't much yard work. Ryan noticed a stray cat dart across the street and into an alley way. As he passed by it, he looked down the alley. He didn't know what he expected to see, maybe the cat perched on the wooden fence, or just a littered alley way. But he didn't expect to see a young girl, about Emily's age, sitting with her back against the wall. Ryan stopped and looked at her. She looked like she might have been hurt.

"Hey, are you okay," he asked. She didn't move.

"Hey," he said a little louder.

The girl obviously heard him that time. She quickly jumped to her feet. Her clothes were dirty and beat up, with tears and holes in them. She wore a short sleeve shirt and jeans with holes in the knees, very strange considering the cold weather. She looked dirty, tired and hungry.

"Um, hello, are you okay, do you need help," Ryan asked. He couldn't help noticing the look in her eyes. Like a trapped animal.

"Do you need help," he asked again, walking forward, hoping for an answer. She backed away.

"It's ok, I just want to help," he was still trying to get an answer. But she just backed away more. She tripped backwards over an empty wooden crate. Ryan walked forward holding out his hand.

"Are you ok," he asked, waiting for her to take his hand. She just quickly stood up and ran past him. He turned around just in time to see her disappear around the corner.

By the time he got to school, Ryan was late. Not that it mattered; he could have not been at school at all and still have learned as much as he did that day. He spent homeroom, math, and Spanish thinking about the girl he saw in the alley and why she was out on the streets. At lunch he went to sit with his friends. Jimmy was sitting with his girlfriend, Alice. Emily was with her friends.

"Well if it isn't Mr. I'm-to-good-to-pay-attention-so-I'll- just-daydream-all-day," called his friend Alex as he sat down.

"I was just thinking a lot," he defended himself.

"Not about school I'm sure," Alex replied.

"Yeah, what's been going on in that head of yours," asked Tristy, Alex's girlfriend.

"Well, there was this girl….." Ryan was interrupted by his friend, Sam.

"Oooo, somebody's got a crush," he teased.

"Real mature Samuel," Tristy snapped, "So who is the lucky girl?"

"I didn't say I liked her, I don't even know who she is, besides, she looked about Emily's age," Ryan replied.

"Oh, so, where did you meet her," Alex asked.

"An alley way….." Ryan started.

"Well that's promising," Sam interrupted.

"Would you let me talk," Ryan snapped, "Anyway, I saw her in an alley and asked her if she was okay, she freaked out and ran away. I think she might have been homeless."

"Whoa, that's kinda sad, homeless at that young age, poor girl," said Tristy.

"Yeah, I wonder where she went, she could get hurt on the streets," Alex added.

"I know, that's what I'm afraid of, but she didn't look too friendly," Ryan said.

"Maybe something happened to her or something," Tristy said.

"I don't know, keep an eye out, she's gotta be somewhere, maybe there's a shelter or something that can help her," Ryan said. Just then the bell rang, lunch was over, and Ryan was thinking more about the girl then ever.

Ryan could have taken a ride home with Sam, Emily and Jimmy, but he wanted to walk, just in case the mysterious girl was still around. He felt sorry for her, living on the streets at such a young age. He wondered why she ran from him. Where did she even come from? Why wasn't she at home with her parents? Maybe she was an outlaw! Maybe she was hiding from the law!

Ryan shook those thoughts from his head. Though, there was something different about the girl. There had been a determined and wild look in her eyes, but there had also been fear and sadness.

He finally reach his house and set his stuff down inside. He went to his room to do his homework, they always seemed to pile it up right before the holidays. After he was done with his schoolwork, there wasn't much to do but kick back and watch T.V. It was too cold to do anything outside. Flipping through the channels, he saw a weather man talking. He watched for a little while.

"We should be getting some snow flurries from the north followed by….."

Ryan didn't bother listening to the rest, he continued flipping through channels when he saw Animal Planet. There was a show on about how some pet owners neglect there pets. There was a clip of a dog chained to a post out in a yard covered in snow with some lady doing a voiceover. He wasn't listening to what she was saying. He was too busy thinking about a teenage girl wandering the streets during a snow storm. He looked out the window. The sunlight was fading and snow was starting to come down.

"Hey Ryan," Emily called from her room.

"Yeah," he called back.

"Can you explain this homework to me?"

"Sure, be right there," he replied. He went to help his little sister.

The next day was the same old usual stuff. Ryan got up, ate breakfast, and got ready for school. He called Dia's house to ask if she was feeling any better, her mother said she had a sore throat and couldn't go to school today. He drove Jimmy and Emily to school. During lunch, he asked his if anyone had seen the girl. None of them had.

After school, he got home, did his homework, ate dinner, and went to bed. He knew that tomorrow was going to be a miserable day.

When his alarm clock went off the next day, he felt like just ignoring it. He slid out of bed, got dressed and ready for the day. When he got to the kitchen, he saw Emily sitting at the table. She looked upset, he couldn't blame her. Jimmy came into the kitchen, followed by Max.

"I'm taking off work early today," Max announced. Everyone nodded to show they had heard him.

No one said anything until Max had gone to work, ridding his bicycle as usual.

"It's almost like he doesn't even care," Jimmy said. They all knew what he was talking about.

"He does, he's just trying to take it well, for us," Ryan said.

"Jimmy, you know it hurts him just as much," Emily came in.

"Yeah, I know, but it ever since Mom and Dad died, he hasn't been the same. It's like he doesn't have any emotion anymore. I know he's trying to be strong, but a little feeling wouldn't hurt," Jimmy said. They nodded in agreement. When they went outside, they saw that it had started to snow heavily.

Ryan drove them to school. The day went as usual. At lunch Ryan was a lot quieter than he normally was. No one asked him about it though. They all knew why.

Finally the last school bell rang and Christmas break began. They wouldn't have to go back to school until after New Years. Maybe a break from school was what Ryan needed to clear his head. He met Jimmy and Emily in the parking lot. He drove them home.

They pulled up in the drive way the same time Max rode up on his bicycle.

"How was school," he asked.

"The usual," Emily replied.

"Fine," said Jimmy.

"Same old," Ryan answered.

'Jimmy was right,' Ryan thought, 'Max had been changed since Mom and Dad died.' He remembered when Max was well connected to his siblings. He remembered him always being upbeat, pleasant, he liked to joke around every now and again, now he hardly ever asked what was going on at school and he was always serious. He just wasn't any fun anymore.

After finishing his homework, Ryan decided to take a walk to clear his thoughts. He walked pasted buildings and businesses. He kept his hands in his pockets of his coat the keep them warm. It was still snowing a little. Every now and then, he would pass someone on the sidewalk, but not many people were out walking around. It wasn't long before Ryan came to a steel rod gate.

The sign at the top said, 'Oak Wood Cemetery'. It was the place where his parents were buried. He walked through the open gates and through the rows of headstones, until he reach a well kept plot. There was a picture of his parents on the two headstones. In small fancy letters the names Debbie and Greg Philips were engraved on each stone. Below there names were the words, 'Loving parents and wonderful friends. We will miss you,' followed by date of death. If he had thought about it, Ryan would have bought fresh flowers for the vase that was put there, but to tell the truth, he hadn't even planned of going there, that's just where he ended up.

Looking around, Ryan noticed how peaceful it was here. Snow covered grounds, big oak trees, not a person in sight. That's when he saw a small figure some distance away, leaning against a headstone, with their head down. The person didn't appear to be wearing a coat of any kind. Out of curiosity, Ryan walked a little closer to the row they were sitting in. He was about five rows away from them. The person looked like they were asleep. Walking closer, he could see that they had long reddish-brown hair, worn blue jeans, and a tattered old t-shirt. Realization hit him, it was the girl from the alley way. He walked up closer to her, to where he was about five feet away. She still didn't look up or even move. She had snow in her hair and on her clothes. She had probably been there a couple of hours. He knelt down and poked her shoulder. She moved a little and look up. Fear flicked in her eyes, and she quickly stood up, only to have her stiff legs give out. She stumbled and fell back on the ground.

"Wait," Ryan said quickly. He kept his kneeling position. "What are you doing here," he asked. She just kept staring at him. "Aren't you cold," he asked. She said nothing and kept staring. "Can you talk," he asked, thinking that she might not even understand what he was saying. She nodded slowly. "Here," he said, he took off his coat and handed it to her. She looked at it for a while before taking it. "I think there is a shelter near here, I can take you to it if you want," he said.

"No,' she said quickly, with fear in her voice.

"They could help you," Ryan insisted.

"No they couldn't," she said quietly.

"Well, you can't stay out here. There is a snow storm coming in tonight," Ryan said.

"I'll manage," the girl replied.

"What are you doing out here anyway, why aren't you home," Ryan asked.

"I don't have a home," she answered.

"What's your name," Ryan asked.

"Sarah," she said.

"Oh," Ryan said, "…Do you have a last name?"

"No," she said bluntly.

"Oh, okay. So, where did you come from?" Ryan asked. She didn't answer.

"Well," Ryan said, "I can't just leave you out here."

"Why not," she asked.

"Because, you'll freeze if I do," Ryan answered.

"What do you care," she asked.

"I can't just leave you here to die, how would I sleep at night?" he said

"Laying down I assume," she said, sarcastically answering his rhetorical question. Ryan ignored the girl's remark.

"I could let you stay with me and my family for a little while," he offered. He knew he couldn't let her stay out there to freeze. But from what she said, it was almost like he was the first person to offer to help her.

"Why are you so worried about me? Why do you even care so much? You don't even know me," She said.

"Because it's the right thing to do," he answered as he stood up. He held out his hand to her. She only stared at it. Still refusing his hand, she stood up and brushed the snow off of herself.

"Well, since you are bent on helping me, I'll take your offer," she said.

Ryan smiled, but suddenly realized that it was a pretty long walk back to the house, and it was getting dark. He knew Tristy's house was close by. No doubt she would give them a ride home.

"We'll have to get a ride from a friend of mine," he told her.

She nodded. They walked in silence until he reach Tristy's house. He rang the doorbell and waited. About ten seconds later, Tristy's little brother, Donny, opened the door.

"Hey, is Tristy home," Ryan asked him.

"Yeah, she's in her room," Donny answered. He turned and yelled, "Tristy, some people are here to see you!" they heard a door open and Tristy walked into view.

"Ryan?" she said, "what are you doing out in this weather?"

"I need a ride to my house, can you drive us?" he asked.

"Sure, let me get my keys," she said. She was always ready to help when someone needed it. They walked to her car. Sarah hesitated before getting in. As soon as the car door was closed, Tristy turn on the heater. After a few minutes, Tristy broke the silence.

"Who is this," she asked, referring to Sarah.

"This is Sarah, she's the girl I saw in the alley I was telling you about,"

Ryan answered.

"You must have been freezing out there," Tristy said.

"I'm use to it," Sarah replied flatly.

"You could have gone to a shelter," Tristy told her.

"I don't like homeless shelters," Sarah said.

"Why not?" Tristy asked.

"I just don't," Sarah replied, slightly defensive. Tristy decided that is was useless to try to start a conversation with the girl.

They sat in silence the rest of the way. When they got to Ryan's house, he got out followed by Sarah.

"Bye, see you later," Tristy called after them. Ryan waved and thanked her for the ride. He led Sarah to the door, and went inside.

"Sorry about the interrogation," he said, "Tristy just likes to talk." Sarah nodded.

He told her to stay in the kitchen while he went to talk to Max. While looking for Max, he saw Emily.

"Hey Em, do you know where Max is," he asked.

"Out looking for you, why?"

"Well..." he started.

"What did you do," she asked suspiciously.

"So you just assume I did something," Ryan asked.

"Yeah," Emily said matter-of-factly, "So what'd you do?"

Sighing he said, "Follow me", and led her into the kitchen. Sarah was standing in the same spot where he left her. She was looking around the kitchen, but pointed her attention toward them when they came in.

"Emily this is Sarah, I offered her to stay with us for a little while, to get out of the snow," Ryan explain.

"Hi," Emily said friendlily, "Um, Ryan, can I talk to you for a minute." She pulled him into the den.

"Are you nuts," she said in a loud whisper, "Max is gonna flip!"

"Emily, I know Max, he can be a stick in the sand, but he's not cruel," Ryan reasoned.

"Whatever, it's your funeral," she said as she walked back to her room.

As if on cue, Max walked in the front door.

"There you are," he said to Ryan, "We were worried."

"Max, I need to talk to you," Ryan said nervously.

"Sure, what is it," Max asked. Ryan didn't know where to begin, so he started from where he saw Sarah in the alley.

"So I told her I had to talk to you, but she's in the kitchen right now," He finished.

"Ok, well, as long as she's not dangerous, I guess she can stay here for a little while," Max said, he walked into the kitchen.

"Hello," Max said, extending his hand. Sarah just looked at it. Putting his hand back down, Max spoke. "I'm Max, Ryan's older brother. He told me he offered you to stay here for a little while." Sarah nodded. "I guess it's ok with me then," he continued, "So, um, how old are you," he asked awkwardly.

"I guess about 15," she replied quietly.

"Oh, and you don't know where your family is," asked Max. She shook her head. Max felt sorry for the girl.

Everyone came out to meet Sarah. She acted nervous around them. Ryan figured she would get used to them before long. After a while, everyone left to go to sleep. Max told her that she would have to sleep one the couch, and before he left, he reminded Ryan to get Sarah blankets out of the linen closet. He went to do so. When he got back, she had already fallen asleep lying on her stomach. He was about to put a blanket over her, when he noticed two perfectly cut vertical slit holes in the back of her t-shirt.

'That's odd,' he thought to himself. He decided not to worry about right now, and laid the blanket over her. Then he went to get ready for bed.

The next day, Emily and Ryan took Sarah to get new clothes. She wouldn't let them buy anything too expensive. She didn't want them to spend too much money on her. Dia, who was feeling better, came over to visit them and meet Sarah.

They decided to have a dinner where everyone actually ate with each other instead of different times and in different places.

After dinner, everyone went to do separate things. Jimmy was about to go to den to watch T.V. when he heard the backdoor open. He looked over to see Sarah walking outside.

"Hey Sarah, where are you going," he asked.

"I'm just going for a walk," she answered.

"This late?" he asked.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine," she insisted.

"Maybe I should come with you," he said, starting to get up.

"No," Sarah said quickly, "I mean, I use to live out there you know," she explained.

"Fine," Jimmy answered, "just don't get hurt". Sarah nodded and walked out the door. Jimmy knew there was something she wasn't telling them, and it worried him. But she wouldn't tell them anything on her own. They didn't want to just flat out ask, it was obvious she didn't want to talk about whatever it was.

**Author's note: Well, it may not be very well written, but I wrote this a while ago. So the first few chapters are going to be a little shaky, but it'll get better, I promise!**


	2. A Moonlit Fight

Sarah had been gone a while. Jimmy told Max that she had left around 6:00; it was now 8:30. They were starting to worry. Just when they were about to look for her, she came in the door. She was scratched and bruised. She had a look of fear on her face.

"Sarah," said Max, "what happened?"

"I have to leave," she said quickly, "now."

"Why, what happened," Ryan asked worriedly.

"Don't worry about," she said, "I just came to tell you so you wouldn't call the cops if I go missing."

"We might call the cops now," Emily said, "you can't just leave. You're hurt, you have nowhere to go, and it's getting colder by the second outside. Sarah, if someone's making you go, then tell us. We can help."

"You don't understand, if I don't leave now, all of you could get hurt. I probably shouldn't have even come here, they might have followed me," she said nervously.

"Who? Who did this to you? Who's following you?" Max asked. Just then, they heard a vehicle come to a screeching halt outside. Sarah ran back out the door, followed by everyone else. Max told Emily to stay inside. Emily obeyed, but wasn't happy about it.

"Stay in here," Sarah whispered to the remaining siblings.

"Not a chance," Max replied. When they got outside, they saw a black van parked under a streetlight. The backdoor slid open and at least six tall figures piled out. Ryan glanced at Sarah whose eyes were glued to the van, fear flicked across her face.

The people from the van walked forward. He couldn't see them too well from where he was standing, but Ryan could tell from their muscled figures that they were all male and were fairly young, maybe no older than 30. A gunshot made him jump. The streetlight exploded, sending little sparks towards the ground. He couldn't see much from the moonlight because there was a cloud blocking it, but what he could see seemed like an action movie put on fast-forward.

Sarah was gone from their side; the men from the van had seemed to have moved to. They could hear what sounded like fighting dogs. Viscous snarls and growls, along with the sound of thrown punches and kicks, came from the darkness. They stood helplessly looking around in the dark to see what was happening. Then there was a strangely familiar sound. Ryan couldn't remember where he had heard it. It as like air being pushed, beaten at, like bird's wings flapping, but bigger. The cloud that was blocking the moonlight must have drifted off some, because the ground was suddenly washed with a pale bluish glow.

"Look!" Jimmy yelled, pointing upward. Looking up, Ryan was shocked at what was going on above them. Way up in the night sky he could see what looked at first to be very large birds fighting, but looking again, he could see that it was people in a mid-air battle. The most shocking part was that they had wings on their backs, right between their shoulders. Suddenly, one swooped down and landed on the ground in a run. They were followed by the other winged figures. One swooped down and tackled the running figure to the ground. It appeared to be a lot bigger, but the smaller figure managed to kick them off. They must have been the source of the animal-like growls, because the sounds were coming from their direction.

The smaller figure that was now surrounded and well outnumbered, but still seemed to hold their own well, until a lager figure grabbed them from behind. They were thrown on the ground a held down by the others. The figure that had grabbed them reached for something in their jacket. Ryan saw a glint of metal in the moonlight, and realized it was a gun. He wanted to run forward to help to figure on the ground, but his legs wouldn't move. He could see Jimmy from the corner of his eye. He had started to lunge forward to help, only to be held back by Max. He didn't want his little brother to put himself in danger. Three gunshots rang through the air. The figure that was once struggling on the ground stopped moving. Police sirens wailed in the distance. They larger figures looked around and ran to the van. They jumped in and drove off.

Max let Jimmy go. They all ran over to the body on the ground. Closer up, they could see who it was. Sarah.


	3. What Sarah was Hiding Behind her Back

"Sarah?" Max said. She wasn't moving. Ryan knelt down and looked closer at her. She was still breathing. The sirens were getting closer. They had to get her inside.

Max knelt down and picked Sarah up, carefully folding in the wings attached to her back, and ran to back to the house, followed closely by Jimmy and Ryan. Emily, who was looking out the front window, ran up to them. She gasped when she saw Sarah in Max's arms.

"Emily, get some wet towels, the first aid kit, and run a tub of hot water," Max said, before she could say anything. She nodded and quickly went to do what he asked.

"What are we gonna do?" Jimmy asked.

"We can't take her to a hospital," Max said, "If people found out about this, who knows what they'd do to her."

"Well than what are we supposed to do?" Jimmy asked. Before Max could answer, Sarah started to struggle in his arms. He carried her to the den and laid her down on the couch, not caring about the blood stains at the moment. He tried to calm her down.

"It's ok," he said, "they're gone, your safe now." Emily came into the den with the towels and the first aid kit. Max took off Sarah's shredded jacket and started washing the blood off the cuts on her arms. Sarah winced and sat up. She was covered in cuts and wounds.

"Did they actually shoot you?" Jimmy asked her. She nodded. Jimmy had a shocked look on his face, so Max took over.

"Where?" he asked. Sarah spread her left wing showing them one of the three bullet wounds. They all stared at it in awe. Her wing was about seven feet in length and was the same reddish brown her hair was. Max swallowed, trying to stay focused.

"Ok," he said, "lets see how deep down it went." He stood and looked at the bullet hole. To his surprise, he could actually see the back of the bullet in the wound.

"It's not too bad," he said, "I can see the bullet, we might even be able to get it out." He reached into the first aid kit and pulled out a large set of tweezers.

"This is gonna hurt a little," he said, grabbing the end of the bullet with the tweezers. He pulled it out quickly. Sarah winced in pain. He applied pressure to the wound with a wet towel. They heard a knock on the door. Ryan went to answer it. When he came back, Max asked who it was.

"It was just some police officers asking if we saw anything 'out of the ordinary' happen," he answered.

"What'd you say?" Max asked.

"I said we heard gunshots and went to see what was happening, but it was too dark to see anything," Ryan replied.

"Nice," Jimmy commented. The bullet wound Max was applying pressure to had slowed its bleeding. He removed the towel.

"Normally, I would ask why being shot three times hadn't killed you, but I guess I'll wait till' later," he said. Sarah nodded thankfully. She had another bullet wound in her side and one in her shoulder, dangerously close to her neck. Neither of them were very deep. When they were taken care of, Sarah walked slowly to the bathroom, where Emily had already run a tub of hot water.

"This is really weird," Emily commented.

"Yeah," Jimmy said, "Who is she really? Better yet, _What_ is she?"

"Guys," Max said, "don't go asking her all kinds of questions tonight, I think she's had enough trouble." They nodded in response. About twenty minutes later, Sarah came out of the bathroom, and went to change clothes. After being bandaged up, Sarah laid down on the couch and went to sleep on her stomach. Ryan put a blanket over her; again he noticed two vertical slit holes is the back of her t-shirt. Except now he knew what they were.


	4. The Truth

The next morning Sarah woke up before everyone else. She knew that when they woke up, the questions would start coming. Questions that she really didn't want to answer at the moment. She considered running away, but then remembered her injured wing. She wouldn't get far. Then again, for her, it would only take a couple of days to heel. She could probably fly with it already, and if she took breaks in flying, she could last longer. She as about to get up, when Ryan walked into the den.

"Hey," he said, "how are you feeling?" Sarah knew that she had just lost any chance of escaping.

"Better," she answered.

"Wanna help us put up the Christmas tree?" he asked. It had been a tradition in their family to put the tree up on Christmas Eve.

"Sure," she said. She got up and went to change. A little while later, everyone was up and decorating the tree. About half an hour later, the phone rung. Ryan answered it. When he came back, he said he was going over to Dia's house to help move furniture to make room for company.

"Her dad threw out his back lifting boxes," he explained, "and her and her mom can't move some of the stuff by themselves." He left to do that, while the others sat down in the kitchen.

"Ok," Max said to Sarah, "I'm sure everyone has plenty of questions about last night, so maybe you should just us from where all this started."

"Well," Sarah started, "I guess it started when I was born. I never knew my parents, but from what I heard, they were told I went missing shortly after I was born. A lot of things like that have been happening around the world. Babies randomly go missing from hospitals. The reason for it was an undercover facility called 'Compound 24', they were performing illegal genetic experiments on humans.

They would somehow sneak babies out of hospitals and take them there. Once there, they were injected with the DNA of animals. The scientists used high Tec equipment to specially design the baby into a super-strengthened, faster, tougher, and more dangerous mutant hybrid. There were different kinds, but the most successful were tiger/humans and wolf/humans. The other experiment usually ended up dying for one reason or another. The scientists also found that they could add wings to any successful animal/human hybrid.

The reason for these experiments I guess was to be used in wars, but a lot of us didn't want to have anything to do with it. The hybrids were kept under close watch. If they weren't being tested, they were in a cage. We had to run drills daily, usually where they pinned two of us against much larger hybrids, just to see how long we could hold out. But one day, they made the mistake of letting two of us, me and another, outside for a flying drill.

They had long chain leashes that they were going to put on us, but before they got the chance, we slipped out of their grasp and flew away. The other person was my friend, Danny. He was a tiger/human hybrid. We got separated when they sent mutant guards after us. I never found out what happened to Danny, and I can only hope he got away. But since then, I have been on the run, going from one state to another, trying to escape the mutant guards that are still tracking me. They don't want news of the experiments reaching the government. Then I wound up meeting Ryan, and now I'm here," she finished. They must have looked pretty shocked, because she asked them if they were ok.

"Wait," said Jimmy, "so you're some kind of human/animal mutant thing?" Sarah nodded.

"You look pretty normal to me," Jimmy said.

"That's the whole point. They don't want you to know that we're any different than any other person on the street," Sarah said, "we can change into human/animal hybrids at our own will."

"So then, what are you?" Emily asked, finally getting her words back.

"I'm a human/wolf hybrid," Sarah answered.

"Then show us," said Jimmy, still skeptical about the whole thing.

"Ok," she said, and she stared to change.

She grew wolfish ears and a muzzle. Fur grew out on her arms and hands. Her bare feet grew furry. Claws grew from her toe and finger tips. She grew fangs and a tail. Her fur matched her hair, so all and all, she look like a reddish brown werewolf, except not nearly as menacing. All of those changes took place in a time span of about ten seconds. Jimmy jumped back in shock, Emily screamed, Max starred in surprise and fear.

"Told you," she said, she still had her normal voice.

"Wow," Max choked out, "that's………different." She changed back to normal. Jimmy seemed to get over the shock, because he continued to ask questions.

"You said that hybrids had different abilities, so what else can you do?" he asked.

"Well, we are very light for our size because we have hollow bones, so that we can fly. But our bones are also almost unbreakable. Basically, I could get hit by a speeding Mac truck and walked away, or fall over a thousand feet and live. Also we are very strong, though it depends if we're morphed or normal. And, we can take on a lot of injuries and still be able to fight; we could be shot several times and live. We can't go long without food though; flying takes up a lot of energy. But pretty much, we were made to be weapons"

"Well then," said Jimmy, "I guess that answers all of our questions."

"Ok, well then, if that's it, I'm gonna go for a walk," Sarah said, getting up and walking out the door.

"Be back soon," Max called after her, "We might worry that you got into more trouble if you're gone too long."

Sarah walked to a nearby thicket of trees. Sooner or later, the Philips would figure out that when Sarah went for a 'walk', she was actually flying. She spread her wings and took off.

Meanwhile at Dia's house, Ryan had just finished helping by moving furniture.

"Thanks for helping Ryan," Dia said.

"Anytime," he replied.

"So whatever happened to that girl? Sarah?" Dia asked.

"She's fine," Ryan lied, "she's adjusting well." Not a total lie.

"I've better start heading home," he said, "Merry Christmas." He started his walk home. He supposed he could have asked for a ride, but Dia might have kept asking Sarah related questions, then he would have to lie, which he hated doing. Walking down the street, he past a fenced in yard. Inside was a viscously barking Doberman.

Ryan didn't pay it much attention, but when all of a sudden, the barking stopped, he looked up to see what had happened. He looked up just in time to see the dog slip out of a hole it must have dug earlier and was outside the fence. He broke into a run as the dog started to chase him.

He ran all the way to a familiar steel rod fence. The sign hanging over it read 'Oak Wood Cemetery'. He ran inside, hoping he could close the gates. They turned out to be chained open, and by then, the dog had almost caught up to him. He ran about twenty yards before tripping over a snow covered headstone. The dog lunged at him. He realized that he might just die in the same cemetery where his parents were buried. He hated irony.

It had started to snow again, so Sarah started to head back. She was passing over a cemetery when she heard someone scream. Looking down she saw what looked like a person being attacked by a dog. Flying down lower, she recognized the voice. Ryan. She swooped down at the huge Doberman that was on top of him. Knocking it to the ground, she morphed into a human/wolf. She growled at the attacking dog. It tried to fight her, but didn't last long before running away. Sarah looked down at Ryan. He had a large rip in his blood covered coat sleeve. Just then someone ran up to them.


	5. An Honest Mistake with a Terrible Price

It had started to snow again, and Max called Dia's house to ask if Ryan had already left. They said he had walked home. Jimmy walked over to Max.

"I'll take the car and go look for him," Jimmy volunteered. He went outside and started the car. Getting in, he started to drive towards Dia's house. He would probably find Ryan lollygagging along the sidewalk in his own little world. Passing by the cemetery, he saw two people not too far from the gait. One was on the ground, the other one ad their back turned toward the road.

He parked along side the road and got out. He jogged up to the people, but was surprised to see who it was. Sarah was standing, morphed into a human/wolf form, looking down at a bleeding Ryan on the ground. When she looked up, he saw that she had blood smeared on her muzzle.

"Did you do this?" Jimmy asked, shocked.

"No", Sarah said. Just then Ryan pointed in the direction the dog had run off in, which happened to be right where Sarah was standing.

"The dog," he said quietly. Jimmy looked at Sarah in anger and disbelief.

"You _did_ do this!" he yelled, "After this guy took you off the street, you try to kill him for no reason!"

"But –", Sarah started, but Jimmy cut her off.

"I don't want to hear it! Just get out of here! If I see you again, I'll call the cops!" He yelled. Sarah backed away, a hurt look on her face. She turned and took off into the sky.

Jimmy got Ryan into the car and drove to the hospital. Once Ryan was being cared for, Jimmy called Max and told him what had happened. He and Emily got there as soon as they could. They waited in the waiting room for about half an hour before a doctor came to talk to them.

"We have bandaged his arm and put him on antibiotics to prevent infection, he will be fine. You may see him if you like." The doctor led them to the room Ryan was in.

"He may be a little drowsy from the medication, but you can talk to him," the doctor said, as he left the room.

"Ryan," Max said, nudging his brother. Ryan groaned and looked up at them.

"Are you sure Sarah did this," Emily asked him. He gave her a confused look.

"Sarah? No, I haven't seen her since this morning. I was chased by a Doberman. I ran to the cemetery, hoping I could close the gait, but it was chained open. I ran, but tripped over a headstone. The dog attacked me, but then another animal of some kind came out of nowhere and ran it off," he explained.

"That animal thing you saw was Sarah, long story, I'll tell you later. But if that's what happened, then that mean Sarah actually saved you," Max said.

"Uh-oh," said Jimmy.

"Yeah, uh-oh!" Emily snapped at him.

"What's going on," Ryan asked, "What happened?"

"Well, when I saw you on the ground with Sarah standing over you, it looked like she was the one who attacked you. Then you pointed at her and said 'The dog', and she was all wolfish at the moment, so it really did seem like--," he was cut off by Emily.

"So basically he yelled at her, telling her if he ever saw her again, he would call the police, and then she ran away," she finished for it.

Jimmy ran his hands down his face, "I'm an idiot!" he said to himself.

"We have to find her," Ryan said, "the weather is supposed to get really bad tonight. One of the biggest snow storms in ten years is coming, and she's gonna be out in it!"

"Calm down," said Max, "She was injured, she couldn't have gotten far."

"When am I going to be let out of here?" Ryan asked.

"Sometime tonight," Max said.

"The storm is coming tonight, you should go look for her before it comes," Ryan told max.

"I'll try, but if I can't find her before the snow storm comes, we'll have to wait."

Max found their car in the hospital parking lot. As soon as he got in, he turned the heat up. He had no idea of where to start looking. So he just drove slowly along the streets, looking in every direction.

Sarah flew until her injured wing gave out. She landed hard on the ground. The snow was coming down harder by the minute. She started walking aimlessly. It didn't take long for the snow to start coming down so hard that she couldn't see. She saw a leafless tree standing in the middle of a field. She walked over to it and sat down leaning against it to rest. After a while, she tried to get up, only to find that her legs wouldn't let her. She realized she would probably freeze to death before anyone found her. She huddled up, and tried her best to stay warm.

They had turned the TV on in the hospital room and were watching the news. There was some lady talking about the local news. Right now, she was talking about a 'strange event' that happened late last night in a local neighborhood. They recognized it as there own.

"The authorities are baffled by this strange event," she was saying, "locals say they heard tires screeching and gun fires, but no one saw what happened. The police took a closer look and found what appeared to be blood stains on the road. When a sample was tested, lab workers say that it was indeed blood, but not completely human. There were obvious traces of animal DNA mixed with it, possibly the result of DNA splicing. This got the attention of the FBI. Lets see what officials have to say." It switched to some guy with an official looking uniform and a FBI badge.

"Well, we have heard rumors of an underground facility that preformed illegal genetic experimentations. But it all sounded too far fetched until now. We will begin a search to find this facility, and shut it down," he said.

"Well that about wraps up that story for now," said the lady, "And in other news." Ryan turned off the TV and turned to Jimmy and Emily. They were both staring bug-eyed at the blank screen.

"Do you think they'll find that place?" asked Emily.

"I don't know," said Ryan, "My question is, what are they going to do with all the experiments when and if they do find it."

"They might save them," Emily said.

"Some of them might not be savable," said Jimmy, "like those guys that attacked Sarah; anyone who could beat up someone half their size and age, hold them down, and shoot them, isn't exactly savable, don't you think?"

"He's got a point," Emily said, "some of them might just be too far gone to help." Ryan nodded in agreement.


	6. Snowbound

Max hadn't been driving long before the snow storm picked up. The roads completely covered with snow. He couldn't see where he was going. He knew he had to stop. He pulled the car over on the side of the road. There was no way he would make it back to the hospital tonight. The snow quickly covered the car. He realized that if he didn't get out, he would be trapped inside. Maybe he could find an open store to stay in for a while. He stepped out into the cold. He couldn't tell where he was. Everything was white and blurred in the wind. He could tell that there were fields on either side of him. He where he was now, there was only one road that had fields on either side of it. He knew that if he cut across the left field, he would come to a street with stores and building on it. He started walking.

Max saw a big tree ahead of him. As he came closer, he noticed a small heap on the ground underneath it. It just looked like a snow covered rock or something, but then he saw a piece of cloth sticking out of it. Without thinking he bent over and picked it up; except it wouldn't come up. Confused, he tugged on it harder. The snow fell away, revealing more cloth. It was denim. He began to brush the snow off the rest of the fabric. He dug up a foot. Which led to a leg. Which led to a body. He quickly uncovered the rest of the body. It was Sarah. She wasn't moving. He could see that she was breathing, but every breath was long and drawn out. Her skin was cold. Ice clung to her hair and her lips were a bluish color. He picked her up; she was stiff from the cold. Her clothes were wet from melted snow. He had to get her out of the cold soon, or else she would literally freeze.

He ran with her as fast as he could. When he finally reached the sidewalk on the other side of the field, he slowed down. He crossed the street and walked up to the closest building. It was a dollar store. There was a sign on the door that said, 'closed for the holidays'. He swore to himself and moved to the next building. This one was a grocery store, it was closed to. The same thing went on for the next block. Every business was closed for Christmas Eve. He knew there wasn't a neighborhood around. He had reached the point were he would knock on a total stranger's door to get help.

He laid Sarah down, taking off her wet jacket, he wrapped her up in his dry coat. He hoped it would help. He picked her up again and kept moving. He saw a subway station entrance. He figured anything out of the snow would be better than just wondering around. He walked down the steps and into the train station. The must have been closed for repairs or something, because there were a few other people in the station. They were obviously homeless. They all looked up as he walked in, but quickly lost interest when they saw that he wasn't a police officer, there to chase them off. There were people already on the benches, so he walked over to a wall and laid Sarah down carefully. He sat down and leaned against the wall. One of the people on a bench called him over to him.

"Hey," the person said. He looked up to see if they were talking to him. They nodded to show that they were. He walked over to the person. It was a man who looked like he could be in his 40's.

"Is she ok?" he asked, pointing to Sarah.

"I don't really know," Max answered.

"What happened?" the man asked.

"She was out in the snow too long I guess," Max answered.

"Here," the guy said, getting up, "move her to the bench, it's probably better than the floor."

"Thanks," Max said. He brought Sarah over to the bench and laid her down.

"It's the least I can do," said the man, "but to tell the truth, you don't look like you belong down here."

"Truthfully," said Max, "I don't. I'm just waiting for the snow to let up."

"Well, I hope you find where you're going," said the man, "Merry Christmas," he said as he walked away.

"You to," Max replied. Then he thought about it. Tomorrow was Christmas, and he might be spending it in a subway station.

About half an hour later, Sarah started moving a little.

"Hey, how're you feeling?" he asked.

"Cold," she mumbled.

"I'm sorry that Jimmy yelled at you, he can be an idiot sometimes," Max said.

"It's ok," Sarah said, her voice was quiet, "where are we?"

"A closed subway station," Max answered, "We're waiting for the snow to let up." She looked around at the other people there. They where all different ages, though she was probably the youngest one there. She yawned; it was pretty late. Within a couple of hours, they had both fallen asleep.


	7. So This is Christmas

Ryan was released from the hospital late at night. But he, Emily, and Jimmy were still stuck there due to the storm. Max hadn't come back yet. Even if he had, they still couldn't have driven home. They weren't the only ones stuck there. All of the staff and a few late night visitors had to stay over night to. They were all worried about Max. Where was he? Stuck in the car somewhere? They were even more worried about Sarah. Was she even still alive?

Jimmy was still beating himself up for being so stupid. It was getting to be a little annoying. Everyone was tired and moody. The last thing they wanted to hear was Jimmy repeating how sorry he was.

Sarah woke up for the second time in the subway station. She looked around. Some people must have come in after she fell asleep, because there were some new people there. She slowly stood up and walked over to the subway entrance. The snow storm had let up a little. She went to wake Max up.

"Max," she said, shaking him, "Max, wake up."

"Huh," he grunted, looking up.

"It's not snowing as hard as before, should we try to get to the hospital or stay here?" she asked. Max though for a second.

"We should try to get to the hospital. Ryan, Emily, and Jimmy probably got stuck there last night," he said. He handed her jacket to her. It had dried over night. She gave him his coat back. They started toward the hospital.

Ryan woke up in a very uncomfortable and hard armchair. Her remember being stuck at the hospital last night. Looking around, he saw Jimmy and Emily sprawled in chairs similar to his. Max and Sarah were not in sight. He had hoped that they would have come in last night. Now he was really worried.

Max and Sarah walked through the hospital doors. It felt good to finally be out of the cold. They looked around and saw the others sitting in stiff looking armchairs a little ways away. They saw Jimmy point at them and say something. Ryan, followed by Emily and Jimmy, came running up to them.

"Where were you two? We were worried that something had happened," he said. Max explained how he had gotten snowed in the car, how he found Sarah, and how they had slept in a subway station.

"Sarah, I'm really sorry I yelled at you, I don't know what I was thinking," Jimmy apologized.

"It's okay," she answered.

"So, how are we gonna get home?" Emily asked.

"We might be able to call someone," Ryan suggested.

"Who could we call on Christmas day?" Jimmy asked.

"Maybe Dia could drive us home," Ryan suggested.

"I think she'd drive to China and back if _you_ asked her to," Jimmy said with a smirk.

"Shut up," Ryan said with scowl.

"You know it's true," Jimmy continued.

"Knock it off Jimmy," Max said, he turned to Ryan, "Call Dia and ask if she can drive us home, tell her we're stuck here." Ryan nodded and went to a desk to use the phone. He came back with a grim look on his face.

"What did she say?" Emily asked.

"She said that the roads are still blocked with snow. There are machines out there right now clearing it, but we could be stuck here another hour. She'll be here as soon as possible," Ryan said.

There wasn't much to do around an almost empty hospital. Finally at around 10:00 A.M., Dia came to pick them up. They were all happy to get out of there.

"So," Dia said while driving, "Why were you guys at the hospital anyway?"

"Ryan was mauled by a dog," Emily said.

"I wasn't mauled," Ryan said defensively, "I just got bitten, that's all."

"What dog?" Dia asked

"It was a Doberman. Somehow, it got out of its yard," Ryan answered.

They talked about things like school, what they were doing for New Years, and what they were doing that day. Dia pulled up in their driveway and let them out.

"Thanks Dia, it was nice of you to drive us home on Christmas," Max said.

"No problem, after all, the only thing I was doing at home was hanging out with relatives," She said. After saying thanks and goodbyes, they went inside.

The Phillips family had many Christmas traditions, and they always tried to keep them alive. Sarah had never had a Christmas celebration, so she was happy to be part of it. After opening presents, watching Christmas movies, and calling relatives to say Merry Christmas, they sat at the table and ate dinner. It was a late dinner, because the turkey took a while to cook, and they got started late. But all together, it wasn't too bad.


	8. Fights and Healing Wounds

The next few days past uneventfully. Max went back to work at the movie theater, Jimmy went back to working his part-time cashier job at Rite-Aid. Ryan went back to stocking shelves at the grociery store. This left Emily and Sarah alone in the house most of the day since school hadn't started back yet. They always managed to find something to do though.

Monday, when Max came home and started to make dinner, he realized that there wasn't anything to cook.

'Ryan must have forgotten to buy the groceries,' Max thought. He wondered how Ryan had forgotten; after all, he did work at the grocery store. He decided that eating out would be a nice change anyway.

"Hey guys," he called to his siblings. They came out to see what he wanted.

"We're gonna eat out tonight, any suggestions?" he asked.

"How about pizza," Jimmy said. Everyone agreed.

"Okay," Max said, "pizza it is." They went to pizza buffet, that way, everyone could get what they wanted, and it was cheaper. They had all finished eating, and Max was paying for the meal, when Sarah went rigid with fear. She was staring at a party of people that had just walked in. Emily noticed immediately.

"Hey Sarah, is something wrong?" she asked, looking at the people. Ryan noticed to, and looked at the group of people. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with them, just some guys getting pizza. One of them noticed Sarah staring. He pointed to her and said something to the other. Max had finished paying.

"What's wrong?" he asked. Sarah look scared now.

"Hey, Sarah, What is it?" Jimmy asked. The men looked up and saw them.

"No," she said quietly.

"What?" Ryan asked. Sarah looked at them.

"Go, now, get in the car." she said in a normal tone. The men were now walking towards them.

"Wha-'' Jimmy started but was cut off.

"Go now!" Sarah practically yelled, now people were staring. Sarah stood up and ushered them out to the car. The men were now running after them. Sarah stopped in the parking lot. She waited for the Philips to get into the car.

"What is she doing, they are gonna catch her!" Jimmy said. Before they could do anything, Sarah took spread her wings and shot into the sky, followed by her pursuers. By now, they had realized that they were the same guys that had attacked her earlier.

Max put the car into drive and sped out of the parking lot. They were home in a few minutes.

"Guys," Max said seriously, "I want you to stay here. I'm going to try to find them, Ryan, your in charge while I'm gone." He went down the hallway, Ryan followed. Max went into their parents' room.

"Max, what are you," Ryan stopped. Max had been looking in the closet, and had found what he had been looking for. He pulled out his father's handgun. He had told them never to touch it. Only Max and their father were even qualified to handle a gun. He had told Max only to use it if someone's life was in danger, which was the case. Max found a small box in the closet which contained the bullets.

"Max, you can't be serious," Ryan practically yelled, "those guys will kill you in a second! You saw what they did to Sarah!"

"Call the cops if I'm not back by 10:00," Max said; he was dead serious.

Max walked out the door, Ryan at his heels.

"Are you sure about this? Maybe we should just call the police," he said.

"Go ahead," Max said, getting in the car. Ryan realized that he couldn't stop Max.

"Please be careful," Ryan said. Max nodded.

"Don't worry," he said. He drove off to find Sarah, hopefully still alive.

Sarah shot through the cold night sky like a rocket. The sounds of wing beats were coming up closely behind her. She knew she should have left the first time these guys showed up. She dove down, hoping she could lose them in the maze of buildings. She zipped between powerlines, buildings, and alleyways. One thing was for sure, she was defiantly designed for speed. Her pursuers on the other were mainly built for strength. They could hardly keep up. She was crossing over a field when a sharp bang rang out. Sarah felt an agonizing pain in her shoulder. She quickly lost speed. The next thing she knew, sharp claws had dug into her ankle and started to bring her to the ground.

Max knew that he would have to be pretty lucky to find Sarah in a big city like this. But that day, he must have been pretty lucky, because while at a stoplight, waiting for it to change, she zoomed in front of his car. He quickly drove in the same direction. He came across a familiar road and a familiar field. He could easily see a fight in the middle of the field. Max got out and started to run to the scene.

Sarah kicked the person who had a hold on her ankle. They didn't let go. She tried to fly away, back it was no use. She turned into her wolfish mutant form. Kicking off her shoe, she dug her back claws into the hand that held her foot. She heard a yelp of pain and was released. She tried flying away again, but got nowhere before being caught again. A tiger-like mutant grabbed her be the wings and through her to the ground. She jumped to her feet to see a huge wolf mutant leap at her. She jumped at them, landing with her claws in their shoulder. He pulled her off a through her. She landed on her back on the ground. Before she could get up, another wolf mutant leaped at her. She clawed his stomach with her feet. She got up and lunged at another. He pulled a gun on her, only to figure out that he had already shot the last bullet. He through the gun at her narrowly missing her head. She ducked, but was grabbed by the wings again by the tiger mutant and threw to the ground. She tried to get up, only to have her sides clawed as a mutant grabbed her and threw her back down. She knew that they were keeping her busy until their transportation showed up. Again, she tried to escape, but was thrown back down.

Max stayed back a good distance, he searched the small crowd for Sarah. He saw her in the middle, fully morphed. She leapt up and lunged at another mutant, the mutant pulled a gun, but when he tried to fire it, it was empty. The guy through it at her, but missed. Max saw another mutant grab her wings and throw her to the ground. She tried to get up, but was thrown back down. Max had the handgun in his hand, but was afraid to shoot, he might hit Sarah. He saw Sarah try to get up again, but again, she was thrown back down. He knew he couldn't wait any longer to shoot. He brought the gun up, aimed, and fired.

Luckily, the bullet hit the mutant that was holding Sarah down; unfortunately, they all looked up and saw him. They all rushed at him at once. He fired the gun again, hitting one in the chest. The mutant fall to the ground, the bullet must have hit him somewhere important. He fired again, but missed. A mutant grabbed him, clawing his arm, and threw him to the ground, just like Sarah. He quickly sat up and fired the gun again. He must have hit a mutant in some vital organ, because they fell immediately. He tried to get up, but was grabbed again; the gun was pulled out of his hand. He was thrown back down. The mutant holding the gun pointed it at him and was about to fire, but he never got the chance.

Out of nowhere, Sarah leaped onto the mutant's back, sinking her sharp teeth into the back of his neck. The mutant dropped the weapon and pulled Sarah off of him. Max grabbed the gun. He saw the mutant who had taken his gun hold a struggling Sarah by the throat. Max fired, hitting the mutant in the base of his neck. The mutant released Sarah as he fell to the ground. The others had already appeared to have given up. They had flown away, taking the injured mutants with them.

Police sirens screamed in the distance, all the commotion must have been heard. Max looked to find Sarah. He saw her lying on the ground a couple feet away, she was coughing and attempting to get to her feet. She had already morphed back to normal. He went over to her and tried helping her up. Then he saw the blood that soaked her shirt on one side. Quickly, Max picked her up and rushed to the car. He got in and set Sarah down in the seat beside him.

As soon as he got to the house, everyone rushed to greet him. He ignored their questions and carried Sarah to the bathroom. He laid her in the tub; her side was still bleeding badly. He grabbed a towel from the bathroom closet and pressed it to Sarah's wound. She drew a sharp breath and drew away from him. Max tried to hold her still and continued applying pressure to her wound.

Sarah wasn't sure where she was, all she knew was that someone was causing a horrible pain in her side. She opened her eyes a little to see who it was, but her vision was too blurry. She tried to get away from them, but they held her still and continued to cause the burning in her side. She growled at them, but they still didn't release her. Sarah did the last thing she could think of, she bit the hand that was holding her still.

Max kept the towel to Sarah's wound despite her struggles. She started to growl at him, but he didn't move away. He knew that if he allowed her wound to continue bleeding, she would die. But he didn't expect what Sarah did next. She bit his hand as hard as she could. Max yelled in pain and pulled his hand away quickly. Even though she was no longer morphed, her teeth still hurt. Sarah stood up shakily and stepped out of the bathtub, her side still bleeding.

Ryan, Jimmy, and Emily all rushed into the bathroom to see what had caused Max's yell. They were slightly confused when Sarah stumbled past them. Max explained that she had bitten his hand.

"Where's she going?" Jimmy asked as her watched Sarah slowly make her way down the hall and turn into the one that led to the front door.

"I don't know," Max said, "But we'd better go get her before she hurts herself." They ran up the hall and turned the corner, only to see that Sarah hadn't even made it to the door before collapsing onto the floor.

Max knelt down beside her and shook her shoulder.

"I think she's unconscious," He said as he pick her up and carried her back to the bathroom.

"Why'd she bite you?" Emily asked him.

"I don't know," Max answered, "I think she might have confused or something. She was acting like she didn't know me."

Max set Sarah back down in the tub, and got a fresh towel. He stumbled a little as he walked back over to her.

"Hey Max," Emily said, "You don't look so good, why don't you let me take care of Sarah." She took the towel from him.

"Yeah," Jimmy said, "You _do_ look a little pale." Max nodded and went into the living room to sit down on the couch. He felt a little dizzy. Ryan and Jimmy followed him into the living room. Jimmy sat in the armchair and Ryan plopped down next to Max on the couch.

"Hey Max," Ryan said, "Is that blood on your arm from Sarah?"

"What are you talking about?" Max said. He looked at the arm that Ryan was pointing to. Sure enough, his arm was covered in wet blood. It was dripping down from the sleeve of his shirt. Max lifted the sleeve and saw a cut on his arm that he had gotten when a mutant had grabbed him.

"Whoa," Jimmy said when he saw his brother's arm, "That looks really bad. Couldn't you feel that?"

"I guess I forgot about it," Max answered as he stood up to head to the other bathroom, but as he stood, the room started to spin. Max stumbled, then shook his head to stop the dizziness.

"Are you okay?" Ryan asked him.

"Yeah, I just got up too fast," Max replied. He walked slowly to the other bathroom. After closing the door, he looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like had been run over by a train a couple of times. His face was bruised and cut, his shirt was torn in multiple places. When he saw his bloody arm in the mirror, it looked twice as bad. Removing his shirt to get a better look at the wound, he saw the cuts were fairly deep. He looked in the bathroom closet and found a washcloth; he found some rubbing alcohol. He splashed some on the washcloth. Bracing himself, he applied the cloth to his arm. He let out an involuntary cry in pain. The cut burned like it was on fire. Grinding his teeth, he kept holding the washcloth to his arm.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Are you okay in there?" It was Emily.

"Yeah, I'm fine," his voice was strained from the pain in his arm.

"You don't sound fine to me," Emily said through the door, "can I can come in?"

"No," Max said, so of course, the door opened. Emily saw her brother's arm.

"Yeah, you're okay," she said sarcastically, "your arm isn't ripped open or anything." Max gave her an annoyed look.

"I thought you were taking care of Sarah," Max said.

"I had just finished bandaging her up when the guys told me what had happened," she explained. "Here," she said, taking the washcloth, "sit down." He sat on the side of the bathtub. Emily pressed the washcloth against his arm again. He took a sharp breath.

"You should probably go to the hospital," Emily told him.

"It's not that bad," Max insisted.

"Not that bad?" Emily said taken aback, "you'll gonna have to get stitches!" she exclaimed.

"I don't want to go to the hospital again, it's late. I'm sure everyone is tired," Max said.

"Too bad, you're going tomorrow whether you like it not," Emily said. Max couldn't help but smile.

"What are you grinning at?" Emily said, slightly annoyed.

"You sounded just like me when you said that, scary huh?" he chuckled. Emily smiled to herself. That was the Max that she knew before their parents had died. Maybe he was finally starting to loosen up.

Emily bandaged up Max's arm for the night. They walked into the den where Sarah was laying on the couch. Ryan and Jimmy must have ready gone to bed.

Sarah sat up as soon as they walked in.

"Goodnight," Emily said as she headed to her room. Max was about to do the same, but was stopped when Sarah asked him a question.

"Are you okay?" She asked him.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he answered.

"Jimmy said that I hurt your arm," Sarah said guiltily. Max sighed and sat down on the couch next to her.

"And maybe some day you'll learn not to listen to what Jimmy says. He doesn't know what he's talking about," Max said, "One of those guys in that fight earlier hurt my arm. You only bit me."

"Sorry about that," Sarah said, "I think the loss of blood was messing with my head."

"It's alright," Max replied, "You're okay though right?"

"Yeah," Sarah answered, "Once a wound stops bleeding, my blood can regenerate really fast."

"Another one of those mutant tricks you have up you're sleeves huh?" Max said.

"Yeah," Sarah said with a smile, "I have a whole bag of 'em." Max chuckled softly.

"Well, it's getting late," he said as he stood up, "better go to bed." He tossed Sarah a blanket from the closet. She wrapped up on the couch and went to sleep. Max went to his room and changed out of his blood stain clothes. He went to sleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, too tired to even bother with taking a shower.


	9. Kidnapped!

**Author's note: OK, towards the end of this chapter in where it is really simular to Maximum Ride. Plus a new main character! See if you can figure out who it is. :D**

Sarah was awoken by a sound in the kitchen. It sounded like something being knocked over. She heard someone whisper something. She went rigid. She knew that voice, and it wasn't one she had been hoping to hear anytime soon. She silently slid of the couch and snuck to the kitchen entrance. Peeking around the corner, she saw he intruders. Two of the six people that had been after her had just broken in the Philips's house.

Sarah felt a breath on the back of her neck. She was almost too afraid to turn around. A snarl told her that it was a third intruder.

She spun around kicking the man behind her. Instantly, her bandaged side burned in pain. The man lunged at her, turning to his mutant wolf form. Sarah ducked, also morphing. The other two came out of the kitchen and saw her. They both sprang forward, morphing as they did.

Ryan heard a bunch of loud noises coming from the den; he jumped out of bed and went to see what was going on. Upon entering the den, he stopped dead in his tracks. In his house were a group wolf-like mutants, four of them. The smaller one he knew was Sarah, but the other three, he guessed were the people who kept attacking her. They were huge, and looked like they would happily rip a person to shreds.

The others must have heard to noise, because they came out of their rooms.

One mutant had Sarah pinned against the wall so she couldn't get away. She tried to kick and scratch, but it wasn't working. Jimmy, who had grabbed a pocket knife from his nightstand when he had heard the noises, darted forward and stabbed the knife into the mutant's shoulder. The mutant yelped and turned around to face him. He grabbed Jimmy and held up by the back of his shirt. Sarah, who had been released, lunged forward and bit the mutant on the back of his neck. He dropped Jimmy, and grabbed Sarah off of his back, throwing her against the coffee table, her head hitting the edge with a sickening crack. She slumped to the floor unconscious, morphing back to normal. Ryan kicked the mutant as hard as he could. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have any effect. The other two grabbed Ryan and Jimmy from behind and hold them, despite their kicks and punches. Max tried to help them, but couldn't do much with his injured arm.

Emily tried to defend Sarah, but only got a well aimed kick that throw her against the wall. A mutant picked Sarah up and threw her over his shoulder. He ran outside, followed by the other two. Ryan, Jimmy, Max and Emily ran outside just in time to see them climb up a rope ladder that led to an awaiting helicopter. They watched as Sarah was taken away to some unknown location. They must have been planning this kidnapping for a long time.

Not long after the break-in, the police showed up. They asked to look around their house. Max let them; after all, what could it hurt. They asked about his arm, he told them that the people who broke in did it. Of course, after finding blood, they started asking a lot of questions. They wanted to know if the intruders had taken anything. Max told them that they had kidnapped a girl that they were housing; leaving out the fact that she to was a winged human/wolf hybrid. Then they wanted to know where the girl had come from; Max said that she was homeless. They asked more questions, most of which Max only answered half truthfully. Finally, the police left. Max told everyone to try to get some sleep for the night, but he knew that none of them actually would.

The next morning, Emily stuck to her word and made Max go to the hospital. He had to get stitches in his arm.

Sarah, who had awoken, struggled against the ropes that bound her arms and legs. They had tied her wings down so she had absolutely no way of escaping. The bandage on her side had come undone some, and the wound had started to bleed again.

A While later, they were hovering over their destination, Compound 24. This was the last place on Earth that Sarah wanted to be. The pilot landed the helicopter on a landing pad outside the building. One of her kidnappers tried to pick her up, she bit their hand. He growled and kicked her.

Once they got her inside, a group of scientists greeted them. Seeing her injury, one scientist had Sarah sent to the medical ward.

Looking around, Sarah remembered being here a million times after drills. A drill was when one mutant was pinned against another in some sick form of an experiment. They had a room called the 'Drill Room' that basically served as a fighting rink.

A doctor came up to her to fix her side. Sarah growled at him to show her displeasure in being there, but let him wrap up her wound.

After getting fixed up in the medical wing, Sarah was taken to a large room tat was filled with bared cages. Sarah fought as she was put in a large cage in the back, right next to another occupied one. The occupier inside the cage growled at the scientist and guard leading Sarah. After locking her up, they left the room. Sarah looked into the cage next to her. The person inside looked back. Half of his face was bandaged up, but he looked very familiar.

"Sarah?" he asked in a hushed voice. She suddenly realized who he was.

"Danny? You're here. How did they catch you?" she asked.

"I might ask you the same thing," he said, "I thought you had finally gotten away, what happened?"

"It's a long story," Sarah said.

"I've got plenty of time," he insisted.

"Fine," she said. Sarah told him about the Philips and how they had let her stay with them. She told him about how the guards had tracked her down and how they had brought her back here.

"They let you stay with them?" Danny asked when she was finished.

"Yeah, they took the whole mutant thing pretty well too," Sarah answered, "What happened to your face?" she asked.

"Drill room," he answered.

Before Sarah could say anything, the door to the room opened. A familiar man walked in.

"Well, I was beginning to think that you would never come back here," he said.

"Like I had a choice," Sarah spat. The man opened her cage and motioned for her to come out. Sarah just sat glaring at him.

"And just a stubborn and headstrong as always I see," he commented. A guard stepped forward and took Sarah out of the cage. She glared hatefully at him.

"You haven't changed a bit," the scientist said, he chuckled to himself. "I suppose you remember me."

"Duh," Sarah said, "it's not like I've been gone for ten years, it's only been a couple of months." The scientist's name was Dr. Linard. He was the one put in charge of taking care of 'the bad experiments'. In other words, the ones that could think for themselves and didn't like the idea of hurting people. He wasn't as bad as the others, but Sarah still wasn't the least bit happy to see him.

"Tell me," Dr. Linard said, "Where have you been hiding all this time?"

"No," Sarah said.

"Fine," Dr. Linard said, "I guess you'll have to go back in your cage."

"I guess I will," Sarah said, yet she stood where she was. Dr. Linard pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. In her head, Sarah was laughing at him. She always made things ten times harder for the scientists.

"I'll be back in a few hours, I expect you to corroborate more," Dr. Linard.

"We both know that's not going to happen," Sarah stated. Dr. Linard left the room. Sarah was forced back in her cage by the guard.

No one had been in a good mood since Sarah was taken. Days were just creeping by, none of them held any news about where she was taken. The police were clueless and unhelpful.

Max sat at the table, rubbing the stitches in his arm. It had been about four days. New years had come and past and despite their protest, everyone had to go back to school today. Max had just gotten home from work and was making dinner. After their parents died, he had learned how to cook; they couldn't just eat out every night. He remembered all the meals he had burned at first. Thankfully, he got better.

The dinner table was quiet. No one had much to say. After dinner, everyone went to bed without a word.

The next morning, Ryan woke up and looked outside. Snow covered the streets. He groaned and rolled out of bed. He was going to have to put chains on the car tires. He got dressed and walked slowly to the kitchen. He fixed a bowl of cereal and sat down at the table. Not too long after, Emily staggered in. She was still half asleep. Jimmy walked in and slumped at the table.

"Ryan, can you fix me some cereal?" he asked.

"What's wrong with you arms?" Ryan mumbled.

"Somebody's grumpy this morning," Jimmy replied.

"Jimmy, no one's in the mood for you're dumb jokes," Emily said.

Jimmy mumbled something under his breath. Ryan signed and got up to go outside. He had to get the tire chains.

When Ryan got to the car, he saw that the chains were already on the tires. He saw a note on the inside of the window. It said:

_"Ryan, I put the chains on the tires for you. Have a good day and stay out of trouble._

_-Max"_

Ryan smiled to himself. Max knew that this would make the morning that much easier, he didn't have to do it. Ryan knew Max had it hard, playing both parents _and_ the older brother, keeping a job no matter how bad things were at home, and keeping his siblings in line, but he still had time to think about little things like this. Ryan went back inside and sat at the table until they had to leave for school.


	10. The Drill Room

**Autors note:** Check it out! another chapter. Well, while I'm writing this author note thingy, I would like to thank Asuterisuku for being an awesome proof reader! Ps: I didn't proof read this chapter. Though I'd give ya' something to do!

Sarah sat on the floor off the dark room. Dr. Linard had come back like he said he would. When he had opened her cage to take her out, Sarah had clamped her teeth down on his hand, which had landed her in solitary. She could hardly see the door in the little light that there was in the room. She was waiting for it to open, and a chance to escape. Just like she had thought it would, the door opened. The bright light from outside of the room blinded her for a couple of seconds, just long enough for a guard to slap a collar around her neck and drag her out. She snarled at the guard, but without wolfish fangs, it wasn't nearly as threatening. She was taken to another room and shoved inside. Sarah knew this room, the drill room.

The collar around her neck was removed as the guard left the room. Sarah heard a growl from behind her and turned to see a huge fully morphed tiger/human mutant. She doubted that he was naturally that size, maybe they had come out with some kind of weird mutant steroids.

'Great, just what the world needs' she thought to her self.

The oversized mutant lunged forward; Sarah dodged him, morphing into her wolf/human form. He lunged at her again, Sarah tried to jump away, but he caught her shoulder in his claws. Pain exploded where his claws dug into her skin. She turned and bit into his arm. Yowling in pain, he let go. Sarah flew to the very top of the room, hoping that with his hulking frame, he couldn't fly. But he spread his black wings and flew up to where she was. She darted to the left in attempt to get away, but he caught her throat with his huge paws and slammed her against the wall. His hand around her neck was choking her.

Sarah struggled, gasping for breath. Unable to think of anything else to do, she kicked off her shoes and dug her clawed feet into his stomach. He roared in agony and let her drop to the floor 25 feet below. She hit the floor coughing and gagging, trying to get her breath back. Rubbing her throat, she looked around to see the other mutant running toward her. He ran into her with his shoulder, throwing her against the wall. She fell back to the floor. Before she could get up, he grabbed her by the wings and threw her back against the wall. Sarah wondered why they hadn't just ended the drill yet; it was obvious that she was going to lose. She was thrown again; her head yet again banged the wall.

As she hit the floor, Sarah got a glimpse at the wall; it had a dent in it from where her head had hit it multiple times.

The huge mutant grabbed her by the throat again and threw her back down on the floor. He put on of his huge feet on her chest to hold her down. Sarah tried to struggle, but the more she did, the harder the mutant would press down on her, until she could hardly breathe.

She helplessly clawed at the mutant's leg, but he wouldn't budge. Finally, the mutant seemed to get bored with the minimal amount of damage he was causing his opponent, and released her to finish the fight.

Sarah quickly darted away from him. He chased after her, holding his arms out so that she couldn't get past him. Sarah flew up, then dived down, kicking the giant mutant in the head. She had hoped it would knock him out, but he didn't even seem to notice.

She landed on all fours a couple of feet away from him. He started to run after, but she lunged at him.

Sarah bit down on his shoulder. The huge mutant roared in pain and clawed at Sarah's back, attempting to get her off. Sarah bit down harder, ignoring the pain of the mutant's claws. Slowly, the mutant began to sway, his towering body weakened from blood loss.

Suddenly, the room was filled with a bright red light and a loud beeping. The drill was over.

Sarah released her jaws from the mutant's shoulder. She fell to the floor and didn't bother to get up. The pain of the claw marks in her back finally set in. Her shoulder hurt. Her head hurt. The pains she had been ignoring had come back full force.

She heard the door to the room open as guards walked in. The huge mutant was lead away, probably to be patched up.

Sarah was jerked roughly to her feet by a guard, but only got a few steps before the guard was forced to carry her. Everything she heard started to run together, and her vision started to get fuzzy. By the time they had gotten her to the medical ward, she could barely keep her eyes open.

She heard people's voices. She knew they were close, but they sounded as if they were at the other end of a tunnel. There was one that she recognized: Dr. Linard.

"You should have ended the drill," he said, "now we have two severely damaged experiments."

"I wouldn't worry about that," said some other scientist, "249 is very advanced, he will recover from his injuries soon enough. 134 on the other hand is an old experiment, she is not as advanced. She will take longer to heal, _if_ she survives," the scientist said, almost proudly.

"You say that like it's a good thing," said Dr Linard.

"134 is not the easiest to deal with. As you know, she's very stubborn. All she's really good for is target practice for the others," the other scientist answered.

"At least she can actually think on her own. I would like to see that hulk of yours survive in the real world as long as she did," Dr. Linard snapped.

The rest of the conversation was about who could beat who. They called her by her number, 134, instead of by name.

It wasn't long before a doctor came in and stuck her with a needle. Almost immediately, she was in a deep sleep.

When she woke up, she was in a familiar cage in a familiar room. She was wearing a different shirt, though it looked like it was from a good will store. She assumed it was because the back of her old one was shredded by the claws of experiment 249.

Sarah looked at the empty cage next to her. Usually Danny was sitting there, glaring at any scientist that happened to enter the room. She looked around at the other cages in the room. They, as usual, were all empty. Other experiments were hardly ever brought into the room. Apparently, she and Danny were a bad influence.

Before Sarah could think anymore about it, Danny, morphed into his tiger/human form, was dragged in, snarling and struggling as usual, and tossed into his cage.

Once the guards left, he stopped fighting and changed back to normal. He looked over into Sarah's cage.

"Wow," he said, "you look like you got run over by a train."

"I feel like it too," Sarah replied.

She saw that the bandage that had covered almost half his face was gone. Where it had been, there were four light, almost invisible, scars that ran from above his right eyebrow, and ended somewhere around his right cheek. They were obviously made by claws. She already knew that he had gotten them from a drill with another experiment. The drills were getting worse for them, mainly because they were considered useless since they wouldn't follow orders. That meant the only other use for them were to be human punching bags. Sarah knew they had to try to escape again. If they didn't get away soon, they would probably be dead in the next couple months.

Danny noticed Sarah staring off into space. He looked at her questioningly, after a little while, she finally noticed.

"What are you thinking about now?" he asked.

"We have to get out of here. The sooner the better," she answered.

"Well I already knew that," Danny said.

"No. You don't get it. I heard them talking, the scientists, one said the only thing I was really good for was target practice. That's why they let me get so injured during that drill, and it's probably the same for you," when Sarah said that, Danny remember how the drills have been getting harder and harder for him since they had tried to escape.

"Your right," he said, "we've gotta' get out of here. But how? They've beefed up security a lot since we tried to escape."

"We'll find a way," Sarah said, "We always do."


	11. A Mad Scientist in Training

A couple of hours later, a couple of scientists entered the room. One Sarah recognized, but the other, who looked younger, she had never seen.

"While working with the experiments, you will find that there are always a few who refuse to cooperate. This is where we store those few," the older scientists told the other.

"Fascinating," the young one said as he stared at them, "They look just like normal humans. Do they have names?"

"Well," Said the older one, "They really don't have any use for names, but since theses two both refuse to answer to their numbers, they do have names."

"They'll actually respond to you? Incredible! Can they speak?" the young scientist asked. Danny sighed and Sarah rolled her eyes, neither of them appreciating the fact that the young scientist obviously thought that they both had the intelligence of a rock.

"Yes," the older scientist answered, "They are very capable of speech, in fact, how about a demonstration." He looked expectantly at Sarah and Danny.

"Well?" he asked impatiently, "Say something." Danny looked over at Sarah; a small, mischievous smile flashed across his face. He had an idea. Danny looked up at the scientists and started making animalistic noises. Sarah caught on quickly and did the same.

"That's enough!" the older scientist shouted angrily, shutting them both up. Then he turned to the younger one and said, "I apologize. They tend to be a little…difficult."

"You two listen to me," he said, turning back to Sarah and Danny, "This is a newly recruited intern who will be working here full time soon, and still needs to learn the basics about dealing with human/animal hybrids such as yourselves, and if you two continue your shenanigans, you'll both be severely punished later."

Sarah turned to Danny and silently mouthed 'since when did they have interns?' Danny shrugged.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourselves?" the older scientist asked irritably.

"So you just expect us to be your little show dogs so that this guy can some day torture us like you do?" Danny asked pointedly. The intern looked surprised that Danny had actually talked.

"I _expect _you to follow my direct orders," the older scientist replied.

"They sound human too," the intern noted, "Can you let one out?" he asked.

"Not if you value your life," the older scientist said, "They can get very violent."

"Hey," Sarah said defensively, "We're nowhere near as bad as those bloodthirsty monsters that you have guarding this place."

"As I recall, you have injured several members of our staff in your many attempts to escape."

"Oh, and should I list all the things _you_ have done to _us_?" Sarah asked icily.

"I think we have seen enough here," the older scientist said as he led the intern out the door. Once again, Sarah and Danny were left in their cages.


	12. It’s Just a Nightmare, Right?

**Author's note: O.k., this chapter is pretty much pointless, but I just felt that we should see what the Philips were up to as all this other junk happens at the compound place. **

Ryan bolted upright in bed. He looked around his and Jimmy's room. He heard Jimmy mutter something in his sleep, and looked over at his bed. Jimmy, whose bed was right across from Ryan's, was half on his mattress and half on the floor. Ryan had to laugh at his brother's strange sleeping habits.

He looked at the clock. It was two A.M. Ryan laid his head back down on his pillow, thinking about the strange dream he had just had:

_Ryan was sitting on the couch in the living room watching T.V., when Sarah came running in, she looked scared. He tried to ask what was wrong, but she must have not been able to hear him. She looked frantically around, then ran outside, still not responding to his questions. He followed her as she ran across the front yard, her wings partially outstretched. _

_Ryan saw a black van come to a screeching halt in the middle of the street. Sarah saw the van, and immediately ran the other way. She unfurled her wings completely and took off into the sky. But she didn't get far before a gunshot rang through the night air. _

_Ryan watched in horror as Sarah fell out of the air, landing hard on the ground. He quickly ran to where she had fallen, but it was too late. Sarah's lifeless body lay on the ground; the well-aimed bullet had gone right through the back of her neck. _

That's where Ryan had woken up. He laid back down, trying to go back to sleep, but the nightmarish dream kept him awake. Something like that could really happen, and Sarah could die a horrible death, just like in his dream. For all he knew, she may have already. The police hadn't found any trace as to where she had been taken. But he hoped, if she was still alive, that Sarah still had a chance of being found, and the Compound being shut down. Sarah, after all, was only about 15; she should at least have _some_ chance at a real life. But there wasn't much he could do. The police were investigating the case. The best he could do was to keep an eye out and watch the news for updates. His siblings were doing the same.


	13. The Great Escape

**Author's note: Yup, another chapter to the story! And just for all you readers who like/reviewed/favorited this story, here's an awesome sneek peek to the sequal that I'm working on: "****_Rain poured down on them as they flew through the sky; their pursuers not far behind. They glanced at each other, as a silent message past between them. The two nodded in agreement and in unison, they flew to the ground. Neither even so much as slowed as they hit the ground at full speed and kept running." _****Sounds pretty awesome, huh? Well, on with the story!**

Sarah was awoken bright and early by a scientist in a white coat. She didn't know or care what his name was.

She was taken to a long cylinder-shaped corridor; a wind tunnel. Sarah was lead to the middle of the tunnel. There, several scientists hooked her up to different machines to monitor her breathing, stress levels, and heart rate. After all everything was in order, the scientists left Sarah in the tunnel. So after, the giant fan on one end on the tunnel started up. The floor dropped from under her, forcing her to fly up. Sarah hadn't eaten much since she had been brought back to the compound and she was still healing from the drill yesterday, so it wasn't long before she started to lose to the fan.

Just as she was about to be push against the back wall, several devises that the scientists had put on her sent a shock through her body. With sudden strength, Sarah shot forward. She was now able to easily overcome the wind currents from the fan. Sarah guessed that her newfound strength was related to the shock she had received.

'This must be some kind of experiment,' Sarah thought to herself, 'I'm probably serving as a lab rat. Maybe I'm the first one they've tried this on, which means they don't know what the affects of it are. I bet I can use this to my advantage.'

Sarah started to slow down, even though she had plenty of energy left. She let herself decline slowly to the floor of the tunnel. She collapsed, pretending to have some sort of seizure. She hyperventilated to make her heart beat faster so it would seem like she was having a heart attack. Immediately, the fan was shut down and slightly panicked voices filled the tunnel.

Several scientists surrounded Sarah and started checking all the monitors. Soon, she was lifted off the ground and carried out of the wind tunnel. Sarah recognized the person carrying her as one of the guards. She continued her charade, waiting for the right moment. The guard jogged ahead of the group of scientists heading towards the medical ward. It was when the guard put one arm forward to open a door that Sarah made her move.

She kicked the guard in the jaw as hard as she could, causing him to release her as his head jerked back at an angle that should have broken his neck. Sarah darted down the corridor before he could even realize what had happened. She noticed that she could run twice as fast as before. Before long, Sarah's feet had carried her to the all-to-familiar room where Danny and she were kept in cages.

She instantly spotted Danny's cage and run to it. She grabbed the lock and broke it off with minor effort. Danny's eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't question his friend's sudden lock breaking ability. They run out of the room, Danny struggling to keep up with Sarah's newfound speed. As were making their way down the main corridor, guards flooded in at them from both directions. Sarah run through the first door they came to with Danny behind her.

They ended in a control room with no way out. Guards surrounded them and immediately chaos broke loose. A fight started, buttons were pushed, and soon every cage in the sector had been opened manually. Almost every alarm was going off; sparks flew from the control panel as it was damaged by the small war taking place in the room. Smoke started to emit from the computers, making it difficult to see.

Through all the mayhem, both Sarah and Danny managed to slip out of the room unnoticed. Knowing that the main exit was probably well guarded, they opened an air vent and started to crawl in what they assumed was the right direction.

After what seemed like forever, they Sarah and Danny found the vent that lead outside, and after prying off the vent cover, they stepped onto the real natural non-metal covered ground.

"This is my first time outside in months," Danny said, taking a deep breathe of the outside air. "That's weird," he said, "It still smells like the compound." Sarah sniffed the air.

"Yeah, you have to get a little farther away for it to actually smell different," she said with a smile, "Come on, let's get out of here."

Danny nodded in agreement and spread his coal black wings and took off. Sarah did the same.


	14. When the Whole World is Out to Get You

**Author's note: Here's a good action-y chapter for all you gore fans.**

They had gone a couples miles when Danny felt that something was a little off. He looked around him and saw that Sarah wasn't anywhere around him. He stopped flying and hovered in the air. Looking in every direction, he saw that Sarah had fallen back a little ways behind him and was barely skimming along the tree tops.

He flew back to where she was and came up beside her. Just by looking at her, Danny knew that something was wrong. She was breathing heavily, her arms were crossed tightly as her figures dug into her shoulders, and she was struggling to stay in the air. She looked at him without saying a word, but her expression was one that pleaded for help.

Danny did his best to hide the panic that was building up inside of him. He took her by the arm and led her to the ground. As soon as her feet touched down, Sarah collapsed. She curled into a tight, shaking ball on the ground, whimpering in pain.

All Danny could do was watch as his friend suffered in agony. He mentally went through a list of what he could do to help. There was nowhere to take her and nobody around to help, they were in the middle of the woods with miles between them and the nearest building, the closest thing around them to civilization was the compound, and if he took her back to the compound, they probably wouldn't help her anyway.

Danny's thoughts were interrupted by a sound overhead. It was a helicopter. Without thinking, Danny flew up and waved to get the pilots attention. He immediately regretted it. The helicopter was black accept for the white insignia that belonged to the compound on its tail. Danny flew back to the ground, hoping they hadn't seen him. His hope was crushed went the helicopter flew to where he had landed.

Quickly, he knelt down, picked Sarah up off the ground, and ran as fast as he could. Sarah shook in his arms as he stumbled over logs, through undergrowth, and under low tree limbs. Voices shouted behind him as fully morphed guards followed his trail. The helicopter followed from above him, making any aerial escapes impossible.

Danny skidded to a halt as he came to a river. The guard's voices behind him gave him no other option but to cross through the river's slow murky waters. He waded through the water as fast as he could, but as he climbed up the rocky bank on the other side; he slipped and wedged his foot painfully between two large rocks.

He set Sarah down on the flattest piece of land around him that he could find, then he pulled on his foot, trying to free himself. The rock moved slightly, causing him loose his balance and put weight on his trapped foot. His leg sank all the way up to his knee between the rocks.

The guards emerged from the woods on the other side of the river and spotted him right away. They waded through the water and walked up to Danny with identical smirks on their faces.

"Having a little trouble are we?" One said in a taunting voice, "How about we help you out." He motioned to another guard, and they each grabbed Danny under an arm. At the same time, they both pulled upward on Danny as hard as they could, ripping his leg from between the two rocks. Danny screamed in pain as most of the skin on his leg was scraped off by the rock's rough surface. The guard that had 'helped' him out pushed him at the others and walked over to where Sarah laid. The others followed his silent orders to restrain Danny; they seemed to respect him as their leader.

"It looks like their little strength enhancement experiment had some side affects," he said as he nudge Sarah's curled up form with his foot. Sarah lifted her head slightly and snarled at him.

Danny jerked on the guard's arms that were restraining him and growled at the head guard. The guard looked at him and pulled a gun from his belt. He aimed the gun directly at Danny's face.

"Any last words pest?" He snarled. Danny only glared at him as he continued to fight the arms holding him back. "Fine then," the head guard said as he cocked his gun. But just as he pulled the trigger, Sarah reached out and pulled his ankle towards her. All she did was set the guard slightly off balance. The bullet hit a few inches about Danny's left eye. The guard holding him let go, allowing Danny to fall to the ground. Danny quickly regained himself and got to his feet. The bullet was still visible in his forehead right where his skull's bone had stopped it.

"You idiot," the head guard growled at the one who released Danny, "Why did you let him go!"

"I thought you killed him," the other guard answered stupidly.

"Well thanks to this little pest," the head guard said, referring to Sarah, "I missed."

While the guards were talking, Danny had pulled the bullet from his forehead, morphed, and wiped the blood that was starting to run down his face on his furry, orange and black striped arm.

The head guard looked at him. "Does the kitty need a bath?" he asked mockingly.

Danny growled and lunged at the head guard. The head guard fell backwards and smacked his head on a rock. Danny landed on top of him, pinning him down. The head guard kicked him off and got to his feet. He went to where Danny had fallen, picked him up by the wings and tail, and through him into the river. Danny landed face first in the water. He started choking on the water that had gone down his throat. The head guard waded into the river after him, but Danny went below the murky water. The head guard was looking around to find where he had gone, when Danny came up from out of the water behind him and pushed him down. The head guard pulled Danny down into the water with him. The two toppled around, trying to drown each other.

By this time, the other guards had waded into the water to help their leader. One pulled a half drowned Danny of the head guard, and drug him onto the land. The head guard followed them.

"Alright," said the head guard, "It's about time we end this little fight." He reached for his gun, but couldn't find it. Danny smirked, knowing that if he lost it in the river, he'd never find it.

"Oh well," the head guard said, as he pulled a long and narrow leather pouch from his pocket. He pulled a knife from the pouch and held it up so Danny could see it.

"I guess we'll have to do this the old fashion way. Hold him still," the head guard commanded the others.

"What about that one," one guard said, pointing to Sarah.

"Don't bother with it, she'll probably die soon anyway," the head guard replied carelessly.

The head guard brought the knife closer the Danny's throat, but wait for the other to keep him still.

"Stop moving!" the head guard yelled. He hit the blade of the knife against Danny's arm in anger. The head guard smirked as Danny let out a short yelp. The guards were just about to subdue Danny's struggles, when Sarah lifted herself up and staggered to her feet. She winced in pain as she morphed and lunged toward the head guard.

Sarah managed to knock the head guard down and grab the knife from him, but was still in no shape to fight.

The head guard stood up and watched as Sarah struggled to get to her feet again.

"You stupid girl," he said, "Do you think you actually stand a chance?" He walked up to her and punched her in the stomach. Sarah staggered backwards, holding her wings out to help her keep her balance. The head guard took a swing at her face, but Sarah dodged it and bit down on his arm. The head guard howled in pain and attempted to pry her off with his other hand. When that didn't work, he took his knife from where it had fallen on the ground, and plunged it into the right side of her back and drug it about ten inches, making a long deep cut. Sarah cried in pain, releasing the head guards arm. She fell to the ground as blood dripped down her back.

The head guard examined the bit wounds on his arm and cursed to himself. He gave Sarah a kick in the stomach. She yelped and curled up on the ground. Danny, who had been forced to witness the whole thing, finally lost it. Strengthened by his wild rage, he ripped away from the guard restraining him. He flew at the head guard, who had his back turned. Danny knocked the head guard to the ground and was about to rip his throat out, when he saw that when he had fallen, the guard had impaled himself with his own knife.

The other guards attacked Danny, but were no match for his sudden extreme fury. Soon, they had retreated.

Danny quickly rushed to where Sarah laid, still bleeding, on the ground. He started ripping long pieces of material from the bottom of his shirt and used them as bandages. Praying that his makeshift bandages would help, Danny picked Sarah up and flew away. He hoped he would come across civilization soon.

**Author's note: Oh no! Is Sarah gonna' make it? Am I cruel enough to kill off a main character? Am I so cruel that I will put a nice little cliffhanger here? Well the answer to the last question is YES, as for the others...well you'll just have to wait till' tomorrow! Muahaha! Don't worry, my karma will got my back later. ;D**


	15. A Change in Luck

It seemed hopeless to keep looking for a city at this point. Danny had been flying for miles, and had yet to see one building. Wherever they were, it must have a population of 10. He tried to keep Sarah awake by having her talk to him. He had asked her about what she had done while she was gone. She had said that the guards had tracked her all over the place and she mainly stayed near one city but hardly ever went in it until she met some nice family who let her stay with them until she was captured by the guards and had been brought back to the compound.

She had just finished telling him the 'brought back to the compound' part of the story, when he got an idea.

"Hey Sarah, where was this city that you found?" he asked.

"It was just the first one I came to. I just stayed there because I didn't know how far it was to the next city," she said.

"How long did it take you to get there?" Danny asked.

"I don't know maybe…," Sarah's sentence drifted off as she closed her eyes.

"Sarah," Danny said loudly, "Come on, stay with me."

"About a day. It took about a day to get there," Sarah opened her eyes again as she answered the question.

Danny looked at her. She was in pretty bad shape. Her skin was pale, she kept drifting off, and she was still weak from what that strength experiment had done to her. But if he could make it to that city, then maybe he could get help.

Danny looked ahead of him and saw a road. He followed the road from the air while he kept Sarah talking. Finally, he saw a single building along the road. He landed in the woods next to it. He thought it might be better to not take Sarah with him; she might scare away anyone inside. So he put her down behind a tree near the small parking lot and walked slowly up to the building. To his dismay, it was closed.

He was about to turn around and get Sarah, only to find that she was standing shakily behind him.

"Sarah", he said, "Why'd you move?"

"There were ants over there," She said groggily.

Then Danny noticed the little red ant bites that appeared every few inches on her arms and legs.

He sighed then nodded. He took off again, hopefully heading toward a city, with Sarah half dead in his arms.

It had been a while since he had said something to Sarah. At this point, she was talking on her own; to herself. She had been mumbling to herself about completely unrelated topics. Danny knew that she must be hallucinating. It was starting to scare him. What if it was too late to save her?

After what felt like forever, he finally saw the city stretching out ahead of them. It was good timing because he was too tired to go much farther.

"Sarah", Danny said weakly, "We're here. We finally made it to a city." Sarah mumbled something incoherent.

"What was that?" Danny asked.

"Go to Oak Wood Street," she mumbled a little louder.

"What's on Oak Wood?" Danny asked curiously. But Sarah had already drifted out of conciseness again. Danny flew as low as he dared over the city. When he saw a residential looking area, he landed. He knew he couldn't take Sarah to the hospital, but maybe with some luck he could find someone nice enough to help.

He staggered down the sidewalk, trying not to let his legs give out. Out of luck, he happened to see the street's name on a sign; Oak Wood Street. Danny looked around for something obvious that Sarah wanted him to see. He continued on, being a little more observant now, when a name on a mailbox caught his attention. It said 'Philips' in little white letters on a sign above the actual mailbox part.

Then Danny remembered. Philips was the name of the family that Sarah had told him about. He staggered across the yard and up to the house, then rang the doorbell and waited.

**Author's note: Wow, am I cruel or what? Another cliffie with one character clinging to life? Yup, I'm pretty bad.**


	16. Unexpected Visitors

**Author's note: Yay! Another chapter!**

It was a Sunday night like any other. Emily spending the night at a friend's house and Ryan had finally asked Dia on a date, so he was out too. Jimmy got stuck at home because his friend who was going to go to see a movie with him got grounded at the last minute. And of course Max couldn't go anywhere because he was afraid that if he left Jimmy alone, he might blow the house up.

They were eating dinner when the doorbell rang.

"I wonder who that could be," Max said as he got up to answer the door.

"Probably some kid selling something," Jimmy said.

When Max answered the door, it _was_ some kid, but he wasn't selling anything. He looked about 15, still a kid in Max's book. He had a distinct Hispanic look, and it looked like someone had run him over about five times with a car. He was carrying another kid in his arms; girl that could have been about the other kid's age. She looked as bad as he did, if not worse. The boy pushed the girl into Max's arms. "Help her, please," Was all the boy managed to say before collapsing in the doorway.

"Who is it?" Jimmy said as he walked up behind him. Max just stared at the boy on the ground in shock. As soon as Jimmy reached the door, he saw the boy.

"Whoa. Is he dead?" Jimmy asked looking at the boy on the ground.

"I-I don't know," Max stammered, "Here," he handed the girl to Jimmy, "Take her inside."

Max picked the boy up off the ground and carried him in.

Jimmy was standing next to the couch, he had a kind of spaced out look on his face. "Jimmy," Max said, "Call 911."

"We can't call 911 Max," Jimmy said.

"Why not?" Max said, he put the boy down in the armchair and walked over to Jimmy.

"Because it's Sarah," Jimmy said as though it was obvious.

"Huh?" Max looked at him questioningly.

"Look max," Jimmy said pointing to the girl, "It's Sarah." Max looked closely at the girl, trying to see past all the bruises, dirt, and blood that covered her pale face. Jimmy was right, it was Sarah.

"You're right," Max said surprised. Then the whole situation became clear. The boy must be from Compound 24, they must have gotten away, somehow got hurt, so the boy brought Sarah to them for help, and now there are two severely wounded kids in their living room.

"Jimmy," Max said, instinctively taking charge, "I need you to get the first aid kit, some wet towels, some dry towels, and some blankets." Jimmy nodded and went to fill his brother's orders. Max felt Sarah's neck for a pulse. It was there, but it was very weak. He went over to the boy. He didn't need to check for his pulse, because he could hear the boy's rattling breaths.

It wasn't long before Jimmy returned with an armful of stuff. He set the stuff down on the coffee table and waited for further instruction.

Max decided to start with Sarah, since her condition seemed to be the worst. He spread a dry towel on the floor and set her down on it with her back facing up. Max could see where someone had tried to bandage up a wound on her back with pieces of t-shirt material. He started to peal the material off, and almost jumped when he heard Sarah whimper in pain. He slowly continued to peal off the first bandage, but decided it would probably be better to rip it off quickly like a Band-aid. As soon as he did, Sarah whimpered again. But Max continued to rip the bandages off, knowing that either way, she was going to feel pain. Soon all of the bandages were gone. But when Max saw the back of Sarah's t-shirt, he knew that he was nowhere near done.

The whole back of Sarah's shirt was covered in dried blood. At long tear ran down the right side of it. It was about ten inches long, and through the hole, Max could see a deep, painful, and bloody looking cut. But what concerned Max the most, was that through at least half of the hole, he could see her right wing. That meant that her wing was covering the cut, and was probably irritating it.

Max started to take Sarah's shirt off so that he could properly bandage to wound.

"Max," Jimmy said, "What are you doing?"

"I Have to be able to bandage this cut up, and I can't with blood covered material in the way," Max explained.

"Oh," Jimmy said, "I knew that." Max rolled his eyes at his brother's stupidity and continued the task at hand.

Once he had gotten the shirt off, he saw just how bad the cut was. It was deeper than he thought, and the skin around it was red and irritated. Max noticed that the cut was even and fairly straight, probably from a very sharp knife.

The feathers of Sarah's wings were caked with blood and had dried to the wound. It took a few minutes for him to separate the feathers from her skin.

Max held out Sarah's wing and told Jimmy to hold it out stretched away from her. Max took a wet towel and washing the dried blood off of Sarah's back. He washed as much blood off the clasp and band of her bra as possible. Then he smeared an antibiotic from the first aid kit onto the cut. He places gauze over the wound and taped it down with medical tape. He carefully wrapped Sarah in a blanket and set her back down on the couch. He didn't see anything else wrong with her except for some pretty bad bruises and a few ant bites.

Next was the boy, who had more, but less severe, injuries. The first thing Max noticed was that one of the boy's legs was missing most of its skin all the way up to his knee. There was dirt mixed with the blood on his leg. Max cleaned as well as he could with a wet towel. He put the antibiotic on it and completely wrapped his leg in gauze, which wasn't easy with the boy kicking in his sleep the whole time.

Then Max took care of a cut on the boy's upper arm. It looked a lot like the one on Sarah's back, probably from the same knife.

The last and strangest wound was one on the boy's forehead. Max could have sworn it looked like a bullet wound.

Finally, Max was done playing doctor and was helping Jimmy clean up the living room when Ryan got home. He practically floated into the living room to tell them how his date when, but stopped when he saw the bloody towels and two injured teenagers.

"What happened?" he asked. Max told him everything.

**Author's note: For those of you who may be wondering, yes, Danny is Hispanic. I kind of imagined him looking like Tyler Posey. If you don't know who that is, go google him. **


	17. Meeting Danny

**Author's note: Yup, another chapter! I've got a little contest for all of you awesome people who are reading this story, I need a name for a group of kids kinda like the Flock, but with a different name. Anyone got an idea? **

Ryan was looking at the boy in the armchair; he was sure Sarah had said something before about her friend from the compound.

"Hey guys," he said to his brothers, "Didn't Sarah tell us about a friend from the compound place?" Max and Jimmy thought for a second.

"Yeah," Max said, "I think I remember her telling us she had a friend there. I think she said his name was Johnny or something like that."

"Danny, actually," said a quiet voice from the armchair. They all looked to see the boy waking up. He slowly stood up and stretched. The boy looked around and saw Sarah bundled up on the couch, either asleep or unconscious.

"How's she doing?" he asked them.

"She was hurt pretty bad, but I think she'll be okay," Max said as he walk over to the boy, "My name's Max be the way," he added, "And those two," he said pointing to Jimmy and Ryan, "Are my brothers, Ryan and Jimmy."

"I'm Danny," Danny said, even though he had already made it pretty clear.

"You're Sarah's friend from Compound 24 right?" Max asked Danny.

"Yeah," Danny answered.

"Can you tell us how you two ended up here?" Max asked.

"Sure," Danny said, "Early this morning, some scientists came and got Sarah. From what I can tell, they did some of strength enhancement test on her. Somehow, using her extra strength, she got away from them. She got me out of my cage, and we escaped. But about half an hour later, the experiment started to have some bad after effects, leaving Sarah weak and in a lot of pain. I took her to the ground, hoping that maybe the effect would wear off. As we waited, the compound guards caught up to us in a helicopter.

Some of the guards flew to the ground and came after us. I took Sarah and tried to run away, but eventually I came to a slow moving river. I waded across, but as I was climbing up the bank on the other side, I slipped. My foot got stuck between two big rocks. When I tried to pull free, my foot only slipped farther. By that time the guards had caught up to us. Two of them pulled me out roughly. After that a fight started, but I was grabbed and restrained by a couple of guards. One, who seemed to be the head guard, took out a knife and was going to slit my throat with it, but Sarah lunged at him from behind.

They both fell to the ground. The head guard stood up and Sarah managed to get up too, she was still in no condition to fight though. The guard punched her in the stomach, and tried to punch her again in the face, but she bit his arm. He tried to get her off, but couldn't. So he took his knife and stabbed her in the back. She let go and fell to the ground. Then the guard kicked her. That's when I lost it. Out of sudden anger, I ripped away from the guards holding me and tackled the head guard to the ground. I was so mad I could have killed him right there, but he was already dead. He had fallen on his own knife. The other tried to fight me, but they soon gave up and retreated.

After that, I flew holding Sarah as fast as I could to find someone to help. It took me the rest of the day to get here, and by the time I did, I was exhausted. I told Sarah that we had finally found the city, and she mumbled for me to go the Oak wood Street. I kept flying until I saw a residential area. I landed there, hoping I could find someone to help. I happened to see the street's name. It was the one Sarah had told me to go to. Started looking around and saw your last name on your mail box. I remembered that Sarah had told me earlier about you guys, so I came to your house. I think you know the rest," he finished.

The room was quiet for a few minutes until Jimmy broke the silence.

"How could anyone be so cruel to another person?" he asked no one in particular.

"There are some cruel people in this world," Ryan told him. There was more silence, but it was soon broken by Danny's stomach growling.

"You hungry?" Max asked him, "I think we have some stuff left over from dinner."

"Thanks," Danny said gratefully. He followed Max into the kitchen. Ryan went to get ready for bed, and Jimmy did the same. About Max had gone to bed too, and Danny went to sleep laying sideways in the armchair in the living room.


	18. 1 AM

**Author's note: I would like to dedicate this chapter to a friend of mine! This situation actually happened to her (though not exactly the same way) with her brother. She had told me about it the day before I wrote this chapter, and I thought it was kinda funny. So Tara, if your reading this, I would like to thank-you for trusting me by telling me the most embarrassing moment in your life! And I pray that you have a good since of humor. :D **

Sarah woke up in the middle of the night. She looked around and recognizing where she was. She quietly stood up, wincing as her body complained painfully about having to move. She saw a huge black bruise on her stomach from where she had been punched and kicked in practically the same spot. Suddenly, she realized that she was shirtless.

Sarah walked quietly to Emily's room, the door was slightly ajar, so she pushed it open and walked in, not bothering to turn the light on. Emily wasn't in there, so Sarah assumed that she was staying overnight at a friend's house. She walked over to Emily's dresser to find an old t-shirt; she knew Emily wouldn't mind if she barrowed one.

Sarah had just found an old looking t-shirt, when someone spoke behind her.

"You're awake huh?" the voice said groggily, as if the person was still half asleep. Sarah jumped and spun around quickly, holding the shirt in front of her. She slightly relieved to see just it was only Danny, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Danny! Don't do that, you freaked me out," she said in a hushed voice. Danny stopped rubbing his eyes and saw his half-dressed friend.

"Oh," he said, quickly turning around, "Sorry. I heard you wake up and came to see if you were okay."

"It's fine," Sarah said, quickly pulling the shirt over her head, "Just don't walk in on people."

"You left the door open," Danny whispered back.

"So you just waltzed right in?" Sarah asked as she finished putting on the t-shirt.

"Well gee," Danny said sarcastically, "I guess I'm idiot for assuming that most people would close the door while they were getting dressed." "And I only waltzed into the doorway thank you very much," he added after a second.

Sarah couldn't help smile at how seriously Danny had said that last statement.

"Okay, it was my fault. I'm I horrible, vile, non-door closing person who deserves to be struck by a bus," Sarah said jokingly as she walked past him and back into the living room.

"I'm glad you see it my way," Danny joked back with a triumphant smile. Sarah sat down on the couch slowly, her muscles still aching.

"What time is it?" she asked Danny. He looked at the clock on the wall, but had to walk closer to it to see it in the dark room.

"The clock says 1:12," he said. Sarah groaned and laid down, not the least bit tired.

"I don't think we should stay here too long," Danny said as he sat down in the armchair, "Since the guards know you've stayed here before, this'll probably be one of the first places they'll look for us."

"I know," Sarah said, but then she realized something.

"What if we leave and the guards _do_ come here?" she asked, "They might think that we're still here, and if the Philips can't tell them where we are, the guards might hurt them." Danny hadn't thought about that.

"I guess we'll just have to see what happens. Make it up as we go along; it wouldn't be the first time," he said.

"Yeah," Sarah said, "I guess." Neither said anything else for the rest of the night. They both took the time to think about what would happen next and what to do about it.


	19. The Departure

**Author's note: Well, here you go, another chapter!**

Around six the next morning, the family was up and about. Ryan, Jimmy, and Emily were getting ready for school, and Max was getting ready for work.

Danny and Sarah had to get their bandages changed, but their wounds were almost healed already. Danny's leg had scabbed up, and the cut that ran down Sarah's back was starting to seal together.

About fifteen minutes later, the Phillips had all gone to school or work. Which meant Sarah and Danny were left to find some form of entertainment. Though, not too long after the family's departure, Sarah had found a Monopoly board in the hallway closest. The two read the directions to the game, and three hours later, Danny owned over half of the board and Sarah was almost bankrupt. Sarah rolled the dice again, landing on one the railroads.

"Wait," Danny said, "I think I own that one." He started to look through the stack of deeds he had accumulated. "Here it is! That'll be 150."

"Ok," Sarah said, "You win, I'm broke." Danny smiled in victory while helping to put the board away.

"So what now?" Danny asked.

I don't know, want to watch TV?" Sarah said.

"Sure," Danny replied, "What's on TV?"

"I don't know," Sarah said, "But people sure do like to watch it." Sarah took the remote and turned the TV on some random channel. It just happened to be a carton channel.

"I don't get it," Danny said, "Why doesn't the coyote just go _buy_ food instead of chasing that weird bird everywhere. I mean, with all that stuff he buys, he's _got _to have money."

Sarah shrugged, "Maybe there aren't any stores in the middle of the desert."

This continued until Max came home at lunch. He started making sandwiches and soup. He was pouring the soup into bowls when Sarah came into the kitchen.

"Hey Max," She said to get his attention.

"Hey Sarah," Max said, he handed her some spoons, "Can you set the table for me." Sarah nodded and went to lay the silverware on the table.

"Danny and I were thinking," Sarah said as she put the spoons in their places, "We think that we should probably leave soon. The guards are bound to look for us here."

"Are you sure?" Max asked, "It still gets pretty cold at night, and you two are already hurt."

Sarah nodded. "We'll heal quickly, and if we go south, it won't be as cold. But we plan to stay until the guards show up, so that when we leave, they won't think that we're still here. That wouldn't be good, trust me." Max thought about her plan.

"When do you think they'll come?" he asked. Sarah fiddled with the spoon she was holding.

"Probably today," she said quietly. Max felt a sudden pang of pity for the two runaways; they would probably be tormented by the compound people for the rest of their lives.

"Well," he said, "After lunch, we can through together some stuff to take with you."

Sarah smiled gratefully at him. Max put the bowls of soup on the table along with three sandwiches.

The three ate lunch quietly, not able to find anything to say. After the dishes were washed and put away, Max stuck to his word, and gathered together a variation of supplies for the two runaways.

Max found a small backpack and filled in with medical supplies, food, some water bottles, a couple of blankets, and 150.00 that he managed to scrape together. He then set the backpack on the couch where it could be easily found.

"Okay you two," Max said, "I have to head back to work, if anything happens, just call and tell me, then go, O.k.?" Sarah and Danny nodded.

Max was about to leave, when someone started pounding on the front door.

"Open up!" A voice boomed from outside. All three of them froze. "We know you're in there!" the voice boomed again. Max ran to the phone and called the police while Danny grabbed the backpack off the couch.

"Go out the backdoor," Max said as he walked slowly to the front door. Danny and Sarah nodded, but once they were on the back porch, they hid and waited to see what would happen.

As soon as Max opened they front door, he was lifted into the air by the front of his shirt. He had forgotten just how big the guards were.

"Is this one of them?" asked the one holding Max.

"No," another one replied as he walked into the house, "but they're here. I can smell them."

The one holding tossed him down like a piece of garbage. While Max recovered from the shock of the guard arrival, the huge men searched the house in a rather violent manner. Max stood up and stared for a second at the intruders. They looked monstrous even when they weren't morphed, unlike Sarah and Danny who just looked like normal kids.

One of the guards came up to him. "Where are they?" he asked him. Max only shrugged. They guard lifted him by the front of the shirt again, morphing as he smacked Max against the wall.

"I said, where are they?!" the guard repeated loudly.

Sarah came out of her hiding place on the porch and opened the backdoor, sticking her head inside. "We're right here!" she called; she then slammed the door and ran for it with Danny on her heals.

The guards immediately followed, leaving Max inside the house. He ran out the door and watched as Sarah and Danny shot through the sky at full speed while the guards tried to follow. It was obvious that the guards' big hulky bodies would never by able to keep up with the two as they flew to who knows where.


	20. On the Run Again

**Author's note: Well, sadly, this is the last chapter. But, gladly, I will put up the first chapter of the sequel tomorrow! Though I won't be able to update it as often, mainly because it isn't already written. And with that said, on with the story!**

Sarah and Danny had lost the guards hours ago, and were now settling in for the night on the forest floor.

"Well Danny, I guess we better get used to sleeping on the ground, huh?" Sarah said as she cleared a spot on the ground. Danny laid down on the ground, using his arm for a pillow.

"Hmm, comfy," he said with a grin on his face.

"Yeah, bet you won't say that when you wake up with a roach crawling on you," Sarah laughed.

"Oh please, those roaches won't come within a mile of me. I have a viscous reputation you know," Danny replied jokingly. Then he started to think, "So, what exactly are we gonna' be doing?" he asked, "We can't keep running for the rest of our lives."

Sarah sat down to think about it. "Well," she said, "if we shut down the compound, then there won't be any need to run."

"Right," Danny said, "but how exactly do you think we're going to do that?"

"The usual way," Sarah answered simply.

"You mean think it up as we go along?" Danny asked.

"Precisely," Sarah said.

"Fine," Danny said, "you lead, and I'll follow." Sarah thought for a moment.

"But what if I lead you off a cliff?" She asked.

"Pshh, who cares?" Danny said, "I've got wings!" Sarah smiled and settled in to go to sleep. It was still pretty cold out, but they wrapped up in their blankets and went to sleep almost immediately. They would need plenty of rest for what lay ahead of them.


End file.
